During this simulation, participants role-play the lives of low-income families, from single parents caring for their children to senior citizens trying to maintain self-sufficiency on Social Security. The task of each family is to provide food, shelter, and other basic necessities while interacting with various community resources such as a pawn shop, Community Action Agency, community health agency, and much more.
The goal of the simulation is to enable participants to view poverty from different angles in an experiential setting. Participants will begin to understand what life is like with a shortage of money and an abundance of stress and become motivated to be part of the solution to ending poverty in the United States.
As one participant noted, “The simulation made me realize that living in poverty is very stressful. I only had to experience this for about two hours and by the second week, I was ready to give up. We had $10, no job, were losing our house, the pawn shop wouldn’t buy anything from us, and social services were taking to too long to get any money. It is hard to think that our 15 minutes is a normal day for someone in poverty.'
Urban Ministries of Durham serves over 6000 people every year who struggle with poverty and homelessness. Spent is an interactive game created by McKinney that challenges you to manage your money, raise a child and make it through the month getting paid minimum wage after a stretch of unemployment. What I Learned From a Poverty Simulation. Anthony Flint; Feb 5, 2015. To start, it was a far more sobering experience than I expected. The Life-Saving Benefits of Barcelona’s Car-Free. The 'Survive a 'Month' in Poverty' workshop in Traverse City, hosted by the Traverse Bay Poverty Reduction Initiative (PRI), and co-sponsored by Northwestern Michigan College and Michigan State. Poverty Simulation. Millions of Americans live in poverty every day. Many more have incomes above the poverty line, but their incomes are still low enough that they can’t afford basic needs like food, decent housing, or quality child care. The Poverty Simulation is a profoundly moving experience. It provokes thought, emotion and insightful conversation about the realities of poverty and how entire communities need to work together to ad-dress the problem. Most impor-tantly, it moves people to get involved and make a difference! The Community Action Pro-gram (CAP) of Lancaster. On July 19, 2019, the River Region United Way, in cooperation with Alabama Possible, will host a FREE Poverty Simulation for the purpose of raising awareness and helping others understand the facts about how poverty affects people, communities and systems of care.
Students, faculty, and staff can sign-up to participate in a poverty simulation— hosted at least once per semester. Optimization theory and application.
For More information, contact:
Graduate Assistant for Civic Engagement:
Tayler Morris tayler.morris@ndsu.edu 701-231-7350
During this live-action simulation participants role-play lives of low income families, taking on the identity of someone living in a low income situation. They will work together with their family to live a month in poverty. The simulated 'community' is a large room. Participants' 'homes' are chairs in the center. Needed services like banks, schools and grocery stores are tables that line the perimeter of the room. These simulations have motivated and inspired many participants to take action in ending poverty within our community. Pizza will be available before the simulation and a free-will offering will be accepted.