How would it feel to go to a banquet and sit at a beautifully decorated table, eating a lavish meal, when a few tables away others were dining at a bare table on nothing more than bread and water? How might it feel to be at the bare table?

How do you put together a budget when you are middle-class, wealthy, or poor? How does your thinking about "stuff" change when all you can own in the entire world is what you can wear on your body, carry in your backpack, and to fit into a single small school locker? What goes on the must-have list and what goes on the nice-to-have? What does it feel like to apply for welfare or to be the person taking the application?

These and many other questions are answered while participating in the highly interactive and innovative lessons avaialble in the Poverty Project.

If you are a parent, a teacher, a religious school leader, an after-school program coordinator, or anyone who wants to use innovative and creative tools for talking about the issues of poverty and social justice, the Poverty Project is something you should consider.

The Poverty Project is a ready-to-use social justice course for young people to research and experience the issues of poverty.

It seeks to help young people experience what poverty is really like. It takes them out of the world of textbooks and into the world of life decisions, simulation experiences, and immersion trips in their local area.

Detailed session plans and 34 reproducible handouts make the Poverty Project a resource for those who seek to respond to the challenge of measuring our society by how we treat the least among us.

The curriculum is based on the principles of Catholic Social Teaching that every person is sacred and has a right to the basic needs for human life, for work and fair wages. We are our brothers' and sisters' keepers with a duty to protect the rights of all, especially the poor and the most vulnerable.

While one section of lessons deals specifically with Catholic Social Teaching, the entire curriculum can be used in secular and religious classrooms, after-school programs, community groups (boys and girls clubs), and many other environments.

It is also multidisciplinary and can involve Social Studies, Religion, Literature/Language, and Technology studies. It teaches research and communication skills.

The Poverty Project is for:

* Teachers - Junior and Senior High
* Directors of Faith Formation
* Youth Ministers
* Confirmation Directors
* Technology Coordinators
* Human Beings 12 and over


Contents

Section 1: Budgeting

Young people will experience where money goes and why, for some, it doesn't stretch far enough.

Section 2: Experiencing Poverty

From being evicted from their lockers and filling out welfare forms to playing Speed Monopoly and eating only rice at a hunger banquet, young people experience the effects of poverty.

Section 3: Catholic Social Teaching

Young people apply the basic principles of Catholic social justice teaching to their daily lives. The human person is sacred and social. We have a right and a duty to participate in society and seek the common good.

Section 4: Sharing the Word

Young people share what they learn about poverty in an infomercial at whatever level of technology teachers and teens can manage.

Section 5: Poverty and Literature
Stories of young people living in poverty; ideas for writing poetry.

Section 6: Internet Resources

Section 7: Local Resources

Section 8: Project Evaluation

Section 9: Reproducible Handouts