THE SETUP: With the support of Whole Planet Foundation, Creative Visions and Ashoka Youth Venture, our four-person team spent two months living on one dollar a day in rural Guatemala in 2010. We shared our journey through YouTube videos, which received over 550,000 views. This experience transformed our understanding of poverty and demonstrated its power to inspire our peers to take action.

We were featured in Huffington Post and asked to speak at the world’s largest TEDx event in Buenos Aires.  In April 2012, we will release a full-length documentary about our experience and take it on tour to share our journey, inspire action, and launch Living on One Dollar: Africa.

THE SOCIAL VENTURE: In order to scale this successful awareness campaign, our team will spend 8 weeks living on one dollar a day each in rural Africa. Two filmmakers will join us to tell our story and the stories of lives in this community. We will partner with 200 high schools that will use our weekly episodes in their classrooms to

• CONNECT students with the realities of poverty
• INSPIRE them through the personal stories of innovation, survival, and hope in this developing world community and
• ENCOURAGE them to learn by asking critical questions of the world around them and to take action in combating the cycle of poverty.

THE PRODUCT: Each 10-minute video episode will use our personal journey to engage students with a critical aspect of life in extreme poverty. Topics will include: Education, Health, Gender Roles, Financial Access, Globalization, Technology, and Foreign Aid. We will add shorter videos and personal status updates to our website, Facebook and Twitter, encouraging students to share their own thoughts and critical questions about poverty with their peers and us.

THE FUND: The injection of seed capital from DSIC will help scale our mission in two ways:

1. Promote our documentary, Into Poverty: Living on One Dollar, to build a youth movement and partner with schools for Living on One Dollar: Africa. We will seek a global audience but focus primarily on touring in the U.S.

2. The DSIC will also directly fund the program and overhead costs of filming and travel for Living on One Dollar: Africa.

The credibility and notoriety of the DSIC will also prove invaluable in building the necessary relationships to support the growth and success of our organization.