Those of you who took on the challenge to Live Below the Line last week will be very glad it’s over! With our fundraising target reached and breached a whopping twice and money still coming in, the Platform2 team have raised £3,367 for Christian Aid.

Thank you to everyone who took part. We had a host of enthusiastic returnees participating in the UK and some in places as far afield as France and New Zealand. Returnees roped in as many people as they possibly could, with one even persuading her entire family to Live Below the Line!

The challenge raised many issues, generating discussions at almost every meal time and in-between thanks to the sound of our rumbling tummies. If we’re honest, here at P2 headquarters we didn’t expect to find it as hard as we did! It really brought home to us how much we enjoy food and variety and how much eating and drinking are big social things for us (we did not enjoy turning down cakes in the office and having to drink tap water in the pub!). Eating became much more about necessity than pleasure!

Living on a pound a day also meant a lot of foresight and planning. We couldn’t just pick up a sandwich or order a takeaway after working late – we had to plan every meal. Any attempts at getting the good old 5 a day went out the window; there was a distinct lack of nutrition in our diets. We were also very happy to have a bit of flavour back in our lives after 5 days of blandness; we didn’t manage to stretch our budget to seasonings!

Lots of us noticed how Living Below the Line affected our energy and concentration levels. This really made us think about people who survive on less than £1 a day and have to do manual labour or work on a farm in hot weather, or children who have to concentrate in schools. And many people who live like this wouldn’t have the luxury of running water as we did during our week of living below the line. This definitely made us think about buying bottled water in the future - one bottle would have blown a whole days budget!

Many of us turned to the big supermarkets for cheap goods and ‘value own brand’ items . But was this supporting corporate domination asked one supporter? It was possible, to Live Below the Line without turning to the supermarkets but this was difficult, and some of us felt torn between hunger and our usual shopping ethics. We know we will certainly think more carefully about what we buy next year!

But for this year the focus of Live Below the Line was very much on raising awareness about the issue of global poverty, and fundraising for Christian Aid who work to expose and eradicate it. By Living Below the Line Platform2 returnees will have reached many people with their story and informed them about the vast inequalities that exist in the world.

After a week of Living Below the Line we’re still very aware that we have no idea what it is like to really live in poverty - how could we when we knew that our £1 a day lifestyle would come to an end after 5 days and when we always had a safety net (we knew that if we were desperate or did feel ill that there was food in the cupboard). This was a choice for us, for many people it is not. The experience has given us a new perspective though, and it has certainly made us think about how lucky we are to have the luxury of variety of food, plenty of it, and running water.

We don’t feel we can celebrate completing this challenge, when for 1.4 billion people, it’s not a challenge but their life. So tell your mum, tell your granddad, tell your auntie’s friends sister’s dog, spread the word about your experience and support Christian Aid’s work to bring poverty to an end. And then we really will have something to celebrate.