Living Below The Line: Endnote

This week has been incredibly hard. Living on £1 a day for 5 days has really opened my eyes to the importance of nutrition and healthy eating, primarily because it's hard to get food of any substance on such a budget.

 

As I mentioned in my last post, 57% of people in Lesotho live below the Extreme Poverty Line, which is estimated to be around £1 a day. I don't wish to compare my week on £5 to what they go through daily, so my experiences are solely relative to those living in Britain. Before this week, I've never been truly aware of how little nutrition you can get from cheap food. Cans of Sainsbury's Basics Meatballs and Beans and Sausages may be filling, but they don't make you feel good.

This week I've experienced the worst headaches I've ever had, while my eczema has flared up incredibly, which I put down to the lack of variation in my diet. Processed meat, rice and cuppa soups have filled my mealtimes, while my soul source of fruit has come from a tin of mandarins in syrup.

However, at the end of the day, I'm lucky enough to be able to go and start eating how I normally would again. Millions of people around the world aren't lucky enough to do that, and this experience has helped my understand the health problems that can occur just on a short-term basis. Long-term on such a narrow diet is unimaginable to me. One way of lifting people out of poverty is to provide them with the ability to aspire to achieve more.

Skillshare International are doing some incredible work out in Africa, and their projects work to ensure people have sustainable livelihoods, empowering young people to aspire to greatness and providing the right education to tackle HIV and AIDS. If you wish to donate to the charity to support the work they do, please click HERE and help make a massive contribution to tackling such inequality.