Nunok's Blog: Social Media Campaign Challenges You to Live on $1.50 of Food Per Day

Sent to you by nunok via Google Reader:

Social Media Campaign Challenges You to Live on $1.50 of Food Per Day

via Mashable! by Zoe Fox on 5/7/12

Live Below the Line, a social media campaign, is challenging you to live five days spending $1.50 or less on food and drink.

The $1.50 benchmark for the campaign comes from the amount on money 1.4 billion people living in extreme poverty spend each day on food. Live Below the Line, which hopes to change the way people think about poverty, runs between May 7 through 11.

"The intention is to increase awareness that will drive action to support poverty," Michael Trainer, U.S. country director for the Global Poverty Project, told Mashable.

If that sounds impossible to you, Live Below the Line is suggesting some foods and meals, such as oatmeal, coffee, rice and beans, which will fit into the $1.50 budget. Even if you can't participate, you can still join in the conversation using the hashtag #belowtheline.

"We're trying to make this incorporate online activism with an offline experience," Trainer says. "The engineering of this is intended to be social — pooling your resources and sharing your experiences — you can afford more food if you join together with friends."

One part of the campaign called Come Dine Below the Line encourages people to host their friends for a dinner party and serve a meal worth 50 cents per person. You can share photos of your 50 cent per person meals with the hashtag #dinebelowtheline.

Live Below the Line started in New Zealand four years ago, spread to the UK the following year and to the U.S. the year after that.

Do you think you could live on $1.50 worth of food per day?

More About: poverty, Social Good

For more Social Good coverage: