Julia, Mariyah, Caitlynn, Antara, Jess LIVING ON ONE DOLLAR Julia, Mariyah, Caitlynn, Antara, Jess

Trailer

Summary Four Friends make a trip to rural Guatemala (Pena Blanca) Chris, Zach, Ryan, Sean Starts June 18th, 2010 Spend 2 months living on $1 Extreme poverty, little food, poor shelter, no clean water Most people spoke Mayan Dialect of Kaqchikel Huge difficulty trying to understand people To make it more real, made income unpredictable Similar to informal employment pay $1 a day each, 56 days total budget $224 Split total budget 0-9 and draw out of a hat each morning Experienced illness, malnutrition and parasites Were taught how to cook more sustainable meals by villagers

Who Would Benefit From Watching People that want to truly understand what it is like to live in extreme poverty and those who have not experienced or been around poverty would benefit. The film provides a huge insight as to what life is like for 1.1 billion people around the world. “To learn for myself what it really means to live under a dollar a day and gain first-hand experience”

Positive Social Change in “Living On One Dollar” Awareness The movie draws awareness to the extreme living conditions of the people of Pena Blanca. Seeing people just like them appeals to the viewers since the issue of poverty seems closer to heart. Charity Encourage donations to the charity “Living On One” Give the natives of Pena Blanca the opportunity to microfinance their loans to aid them financially.

Advocacy within “Living on One Dollar” Advocacy: Supporting and bringing attention to a cause Education 40% of children in that region of Guatemala cannot afford the $25 cost for school Living on One allows you to donate directly to families to enable children to afford school Disaster/Disease Disaster and Disease are enough to completely wipe away what little money people manage to save Traditional banks will not loan to people without formal jobs Grameen offers these people a leg up with loans and the future Cycle of Poverty Many of the natives cannot afford school so they work informal jobs Cannot get loans to afford education Helping one person is enough “They know how to survive, but it isn’t okay”

Community within “Living on One Dollar” COMMON GOAL: SURVIVE Money Management: Anthony’s Family 8 people in house $1.25 each day per person Paying for: Food Education House Repairs Children 40% of children drop out of school because they have to work Savings Club: Coming together to pay for a cooking stove or other ticket item 12 people each save $12 every month End of month $144 given to one member. Process repeats until each person gets their $144. Money goes towards weddings, stoves etc. Jobs: Very unstable and unpredictable Anthony = only one with one Chino’s mom gets sick Anthony pays for medicine, bills, hospital visits Comradery: Dinner Parties “You guys are like brothers” -Anthony

Service within “Living on One Dollar” Service: the action of helping or doing work for someone Group Effort Citizens help each other with things they may need. When the four friends arrived, they did not know how to plant radishes, so a farmer showed them. The citizens help each other out by providing meals to one another when needed. Donations Living on One partnered with Whole Planet Foundation and Mayan Families to give people the opportunity to provide microfinance loans to those in need or providemoney for education. Micro-finance Loans Micro-finance loans help people by providing loans and when someone takes out a loan, they must also commit to opening a savings account,which is also very helpful. It can be difficult for one to get a loan. Grameen is an organization that helps with loans without the difficulty.

Has anything changed? “Living on One Dollar” came out in 2013, so there has not been time for a large amount of change to occur worldwide, but some change has been made. Grameen, which provides loans to the most impoverished, has expanded more in Latin America and globally Rosa, one of the women interviewed in Peña Blanca, got into nursing school like she has planned on. The United Nations has launched a new project that aims to eradicate extreme poverty, which is living on $1.25 a day, by 2030.

Connection It may not seem like it, but many college students can relate to the individuals in Pena Blanca. Although most of us have meal plans, some students go to colleges where there are not meal plans, they could not afford meal plans, or they were not provided scholarship money for meals, so they struggle to eat on a daily basis. Also, some students cannot afford housing, so they find random places to sleep. Lastly, some students cannot afford a college education to begin with or they must immediately go into the workforce to provide for their families, so they cannot start pursuing a career.

Criticism As a personal, experimental research project, the documentary about four, normal, college boys living in on one dollar a day was fantastic. Although, as a movie that was meant about the emergent poverty crisis in rural Guatemala, the movie had some faults. The movie seemed to lack depth because the boys seemed like four privileged boys trying to be adventurous and accepting a “challenge”. Living in those conditions was not an active way of helping the impoverished people of Guatemala. The fact that the boys challenged themselves to "one dollar a day" came off as more of a distraction from the actual topic which were the people of Guatemala and their living conditions. So people like Rosa and Chino were only side characters to the story of four boys having an adventure in rural South America. Focused on their own sickness and struggle rather than the native’s.

Now what? “Don’t forget about us...fighting just to survive” NOT A ONE-ANSWER SOLUTION Empathize: - Unpredictable Income - Lack of food - Bad nutrition - Fatigue (hard to work) - Little growth - Circumstances depict future - Chino accepts future as farmer despite aspiring to be a professional soccer player Appreciate: - Clean water - No bugs and sediments - Access to education - Relative predictability of your life Do what you can: - “Power of partial solutions” - Educate whenever and wherever - Bring joy to others - Donate - livingononedollar.org “Don’t forget about us...fighting just to survive”