During the fall semester of 2006, Dr. Shawn Humphrey from the University of Mary Washington gave the students of his Principles of Macroeconomics class a unique challenge: live on two dollars a day for a week. In the spring of 2007, that challenge became the “Living on $2 a Day” project for his Economic Development class. That project is now the $2 a Day Challenge. It asks participants to choose a cause, a partner, set a monetary goal, and live on $2 a day.
In the first year the chosen cause was microfinance, the chosen partner was Kiva, and the monetary goal was $1,000. Using the $2 a Day Chalenge, this one class raised $1,600! Even today they are still extending small business loans to entrepreneurs in developing and transitioning economies (see their lender’s page). That was just the beginning. In the spring of 2008, students enrolled in Dr. Humphrey’s Economic Development class and the Economic Development Club at the University of Mary Washington partnered with Students Helping Honduras. Their shared objective was to raise the seed capital for La Ceiba; a student-led, operated and governed micro-financial institution for the communities surrounding El Progreso, Honduras. What started as a project for one class was transformed into a university-wide event. Participants from other courses and multiple disciplines signed up to participate in the $2 a Day Challenge. Together they raised $6,750!
This was momentous. The $2 a Day Challenge had capitalized a development initiative that concluded in tangible assistance for impoverished individuals in Honduras. Not only that, this was a student-led development initiative. It empowered a group of students at a small university to make a direct difference in the lives of others. The TDC Team was inspired. What would happen to global poverty if students at other campuses could use the $2 a Day Challenge to capitalize their own development initiatives? To see what could happen and the impact that could be made, TDC went National in 2009.
The TDC Team started to carve out its name, presenting at the Clinton Global Initiative University (spring 2009) and co-hosting the Poverty Action Conference. This conference was held at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, VA and was attended by more than 150 students from 16 Universities across the region. Our speakers included John Hatch, founder of FINCA, Anne Hastings founder of Fonkoze, Kate Drushel with the Grameen Foundation, Stephen Smith, author of Ending Global Poverty among many other things, and Comso Fujiama, cofounder of SHH.
More recently, in the fall of 2010, TDC and Opportunity International were selected, after a nationally competitive application process, as a “Top 10” program by the U.S. Center for Citizen Diplomacy. On Wednesday, November 17, during the summit convened by the USCCD in conjunction with the U.S. State Department, TDC and Opportunity presented their efforts to involve citizens in fighting poverty and disease—one of seven “global challenges” highlighted at the summit. And, once again, the TDC team was invited to participate in CGIU 2011 in San Diego to highlight its first National Month of Microfinance.
