Live below the line this week

If you've been in to the Phonebox Magazine office in Stanley Court over the last few months, you'll have seen the box where we collect donations for the Food Bank, maybe you've even popped something in there yourself. In thinking about helping those who don't have enough food, we thought we'd share an initiative called Live Below the Line, which is taking place this coming week and helps raise awareness and money for those around the world living in poverty.

Live Below the Line encourages people across the world to join together in spending just £5 on food for the week. From 27th April-1st May you can get involved and live on just £1 a day for your food and drink, using your experience to help change perspectives and behaviours, and raise money for a cause you believe in. The aim isn't to replicate what it would be like to live in poverty, but rather to help connect you to the issues you're fundraising for and help you understand in a very small way how people living in poverty have to live every day. Potentially leaving you a little less full than usual, it'll give you an even better idea of the injustice that 1.2billion people have to face every day living on £1, as well as helping you to save money. We so often spend so much money on food and drink, and this could be a week of reality-checking how much we really need to be spending on food and maybe donating the savings.

Since 2011, people taking part in Live Below the Line have raised over £3 million in the UK alone. To take part in it as a fundraising challenge, you can ask people to sponsor you for the week as well as fundraising and donating the extra money you would have usually spent on food for that week. The Live Below the Line website offers loads of ideas, including recipes, fundraising ideas, school challenge ideas and more, why not take on the challenge and get involved!

World Food Day 2014

Today is World Food Day, something which was started on the 16th october 1981, and has continued to be remembered each year since then. The aim of the day is, in summary, to raise awareness of the problems surrounding food and hunger, and to encourage those involved in its production across the world.

2014 is the year of family farming, and so this is the theme which has been given to World Food Day this year, with the aim of raising the profile of family farming and smallholder farmers around the world.

World Food Day aims to raise awareness towards their cause to eradicate world hunger, to achieve a world with 'zero hunger'. Despite the numerous emergency situations around the world, the World Food Programme (WFP) and partners are making a real difference for children, families and communities around the world.

Eradicating world hunger seems like a huge task, and it is, but it is so true that every little helps, and where better to start eradicating hunger than on your doorstep. Why not donate a little bit of non-perishable food to the Milton Keynes food bank which distributes food to hundreds of needy people across the city, or you could even volunteer to help at one of these food banks. So far this year, the food bank has distributed over 10247 food parcels across Milton Keynes and continues to do so every day. Things such as these save lives, and help start the steps at home towards a world without hunger.