One day down and four to go. Living below the extreme poverty line is not easy, but if you are in Ecuador, it is definitely possible to do. As long as you can get accustomed to eating oatmeal, lots of rice and forget about the olive oil dressing on your sandwiches. Out must also go meat products, those are more costly here.
But with perks such as buying 50 cent oatmeal bag that lasts you for 5 days, and the chance to buy eggs per unit, you can see the money goes a long way. What is also great is that you can walk into a small store and ask the kind lady behind the counter to cut you a piece of cheese for whatever amount of money you have in your hand.
As you can see living on $1.50 per day in Ecuador is not as hard as it sounds for people from more developed countries. Of course, it is much less than the usual $5 budget we have, with which you can even eat out.
The real purpose of our challenge was not only to shed more awareness to the hunger and poverty problem, but also the different buying power your money has in different countries. Living on $1.50 in America is not the same as living for this amount in Ecuador or even going further to Burkina Faso.
We need to focus more on hunger that exist in our countries, the so-called ´rich´, developed or more politically correct – northern countries. The image we have of hunger is the extremely thin black kid with a bulging belly. Well, if you go to a poor neighborhood in USA you will see that hunger has taken on many diverse shapes. If you continue looking for the stereotypical image of hunger in your country then you will most likely miss the different faces of hunger in your part of the world.
Say No To Food Waste 