Media Release

Kiwis to Live on $2.25 Per Day

Leading aid and development organisation, TEAR Fund is asking the public to downsize their grocery bills to match the equivalent of the extreme poverty line for five days this September.

TEAR Fund has partnered with the Global Poverty Project and six other like-minded organizations, including UNICEF, Oxfam and World Vision, to participate in the global Live Below the Line campaign. The campaign challenges New Zealanders to live on $2.25 a day for their food for five days from 24-28 September.

The aim is to give New Zealanders a glimpse into the lives of 1.4 billion people living in extreme poverty and to encourage meaningful conversations around the issue. “We’re asking people to give up their Masterchef-inspired menus and try baked beans on toast or lentils and rice for a few days, to really appreciate how the other half lives,” said TEAR Fund communications manager Helen Manson.

“It will benefit people’s health and their pockets to take part, and it will be an important reminder that there are so many people living in abject poverty. It’s important to do what we can to help,” she said.

Participants in the challenge raise money for their chosen organisation through an online fundraising page. Money raised as people Live Below the Line for TEAR Fund will go towards TEAR Fund’s Share and Care project, which helps rescue girls caught up in the human trafficking trade in Nepal. On average between 7,000 and 9,000 young girls aged as young as nine are trafficked every year in Nepal.

TEAR Fund is combating this issue by educating vulnerable families about trafficking, providing young girls with education and rehabilitating women that have been trafficked. Funds from the challenge will also be directed to TEAR Fund’s work with mothers and their newborn babies in India and Ethiopia. Money raised will provide them with pre-natal care, health screening, sanitation, supplements and immunisations.

The Live Below the Line challenge has already successfully taken place in the US, UK and Australia with celebrities including Hugh Jackman and Minka Kelly taking part.

For more information, go to https://www.livebelowtheline.com/nz-tearfund
ENDS

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