Have you ever had your assumptions about global poverty challenged? How about your motivations and your methods to bring an end to global poverty? The $2 a Day Challenge is a unique and impactful experiential learning exercise. However, lets be honest, living on $2 a day on campus is not really a challenge. Having your assumptions, motivations, and methods critically evaluated by a community of your peers is the challenge in the $2 a Day Challenge. Here at TDC we are fond of saying “while the physical discomforts dissipate at the end of the $2 a Day Challenge, the emotional and intellectual discomforts linger.” For these reasons, we believe that the $2 a Day Challenge is not for everyone.
Are you up for a Challenge? There are three steps:
Step 1: Choose a Cause
Select a poverty-related cause – for example, education, microfinance, enterprise development, water, HIV Aids, and environmental justice to name just a few.
Step 2: Choose a Partner
Select a non-profit partner that implements a development program(s) that addresses your cause.
Step 3: Take on the $2 a Day Challenge
Constrain your daily income to two dollars for 5 days and 4 nights, limit your access to water, clothing, and other preexisting sources of wealth, set a monetary goal, participate in 2 discussion nights, raise awareness and funds, and transfer all donations to your chosen non-profit partner.
Already know you want to take on the $2 a Day Challenge?
Instructors:
Visit the Instructors page to learn about the resources we have to offer – including, lecture notes, discussion topics, and other resources to facilitate your use of the $2 a Day Challenge in the classroom.
Students:
Visit the Students page to learn about the available resources to make your $2 a Day Challenge a success.
Need a bit more convincing?
The $2 a Day Challenge has many strengths:
1. Raises Awareness: It is a conversation starter about global poverty. Every interaction with a participant and a non-participant – whether at the dinner table, on campus, or in surrounding community – is an opportunity to inform a larger audience about the pervasiveness of poverty and the role of your chosen cause and non-profit partner in eradicating it.
Visit our In the News Page to see the awareness the $2 a Day Challenge has raised.
2. Engenders Empathy: Whereas the physical discomforts that attend the $2 a Day Challenge recede when participants return back their wealthy lifestyles, the emotional discomforts linger. Over the years, student journal and blog entries have demonstrated that the $2 a Day Challenge succeeds in engendering a deeper sensitivity and awareness concerning the economic lives of the poor.
Visit our Impact Page to review the reflections of past participants.
3. Provides an Opportunity to Act: In addition to raising funds the $2 a Day Challenge provides its participants an opportunity to act by partnering with non-profit organizations that are actively engaged in alleviating poverty.
Visit our Impact Page to see the how the $2 a Day Challenge has made a difference.
4. Visit our Media page to review pictures and video footage of past $2 a Challenge events and get a glimpse of what lies ahead for you and fellow participants.
