A collaboration between Compassion Canada and Youth Worker Community
Hello youth workers!
Particularly in a pandemic, we know it can be a challenge to engage students online. We also know many of you are mourning the loss of missions trips and service opportunities in this season.
We can’t solve every pandemic-related problem (if only we could), but we did partner with Youth Worker Community to create a simple resource to help you engage your students: The Identify with Poverty Challenge!
Pulled from our True Story youth curriculum, these six challenges can all be done safely from home and can help you engage with your students online in conversations about poverty, compassion and justice. You can run this six-week challenge anytime this ministry year.
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We’ve created two ways for you to engage:
1. The TikTok experience
Find us on TikTok at @compassionca. Then “duet” our #IdentifyWithPovertyChallenge videos (each one linked at the end of this post!) to share your experience and learnings from each challenge and encourage your students to do the same. There’s also an introduction video available.
2. The Instagram experience
Run the challenge from your own youth ministry’s Instagram account! Scroll down to download the challenge videos and see our suggested captions. There is an introduction video and a video explaining each of the six challenges. Post a challenge weekly on your youth ministry’s Instagram page and invite your students to share posts of themselves completing each challenge under the hashtag #IdentifyWithPovertyChallenge. Be sure to tag us in your posts @compassionca!
Want to see an example of how to run the challenge on Instagram? Follow our team’s experience with the challenge on @CompassionCAevents.
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We hope these simple challenges are engaging, educational and perspective-shaping for you and your students! Keep in mind that the challenges don’t just have to live on social media. If you have a weekly gathering, announce the challenge each week (and play the week’s challenge video!) and encourage students to discuss their experiences and learnings in small groups each week.
And, if you’re looking for a way to engage your students deeper in conversations about poverty, compassion and justice, check out our free curriculum, True Story: What God Wants Us To Do About Poverty.
Thanks for all you continue to do to disciple students and draw them closer to Jesus—particularly in these times!
Your friends at Compassion Canada
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EXTRA: Fundraise with Compassion
If your youth group wants to engage in a more practical way, we invite you to fundraise for Compassion’s COVID-19 relief efforts throughout your time doing the #IdentifyWithPovertyChallenge using our new online fundraising platform! On this platform, you can share updates and track your progress towards a fundraising goal that you set.
Set up a fundraising page for your group today at fundraise.compassion.ca/covid19.
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Video downloads and captions for the Instagram experience
00 | Introduction
This post serves as a short introduction to the Identify with Poverty Challenge.
Suggested Instagram caption:
Over the next six weeks, we will be engaging with the #IdentifyWithPovertyChallenge with @CompassionCA! The goal of these challenges is to help us gain perspective on the needs of people living in poverty around the world and learn how we can make a difference. Each week, we’ll post a video explaining the challenge, and your job will be to share a post of yourself completing the challenge using the hashtag #IdentifyWithPovertyChallenge. Who’s in?!
01 | Electricity challenge
This week’s challenge is to go without electricity each night after dinner until you wake up the next morning.
Suggested Instagram caption:
#IdentifyWithPovertyChallenge Week 1! This week’s challenge is to go without electricity each night after dinner until you wake up the next morning. Did you know the World Bank estimates that globally, one billion people—mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia—live their daily lives without electricity? We turn on the lights or plug in our phones without a second thought, but for people living in poverty who experience regular brown outs, they can’t rely on steady access to electricity to live their daily lives. As you complete this challenge, think about how your life would change if you didn’t have access to electricity.
Be sure to share about your experience with this challenge using #IdentifyWithPovertyChallenge, and don’t forget to tag us and @compassionca. Show us some photos of you doing homework by flashlight or candlelight!
02 | Utensil challenge
This week’s challenge is to choose one eating utensil and use only that utensil for the duration of the week.
Suggested Instagram caption:
#IdentifyWithPovertyChallenge Week 2! This week’s challenge is to choose one eating utensil and use only that utensil for the duration of the week. As you complete this challenge, take some time to learn about global food insecurity. Several global crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic and a locust crisis, are putting millions more children at risk of starvation this year. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed, so it’s important to take some time to learn about steps you might be able to take to help.
Share about your experience with this challenge and what you learn this week using #IdentifyWithPovertyChallenge. Don’t forget to tag us and @compassionca!
03 | Sleep challenge
This week’s challenge is to sleep on the floor for a night, or every night this week if you’re up for it!
Suggested Instagram caption:
#IdentifyWithPovertyChallenge Week 3! This week’s challenge is to sleep on the floor for a night—or every night this week if you’re up for it! As you complete this challenge, think about people in our city and around the world who don’t have a safe place to sleep at night. How might that affect their everyday life?
Share a photo or video of yourself completing this challenge using #IdentifyWithPovertyChallenge, and don’t forget to tag us and @compassionca!
04 | Water challenge
This week’s challenge is to choose the sink in your house that is hardest for you to access and use only that sink as your water source for the duration of the week.
Suggested Instagram caption:
#IdentifyWithPovertyChallenge Week 4! This week’s challenge is to choose the sink in your house that is hardest for you to access and use only that sink as your water source for the duration of the week. As you complete this challenge, think about how a lack of access to water can affect so many aspects of a person’s life. Walking long distances to collect water causes students to miss school and puts women and children at risk of violence. Even then, the water they collect is often contaminated, putting them at risk of water-borne diseases. Take some time this week to learn about water issues facing communities here at home—such as Indigenous communities in Canada—and around the world.
Share what you learn and how you completed this week’s challenge using #IdentifyWithPovertyChallenge and don’t forget to tag us and @compassionca!
05 | Clothing challenge
This week’s challenge is to choose one set of clothes and wear them all week. To clarify, this isn’t an excuse to smell bad all week, but it does mean you’ll be doing some extra laundry.
Suggested Instagram caption:
#IdentifyWithPovertyChallenge Week 5! This week’s challenge is to choose one set of clothes and wear them all week. To clarify, this isn’t an excuse to smell bad all week, but it does mean you’ll probably be doing laundry more often.
For many of us, how we dress is how we express ourselves. But poverty often robs people of the opportunity for their voice to be heard. “Be a voice for the voiceless,” is a well-known slogan, but the reality is that people living in poverty aren’t voiceless—rather, their voices are often silenced or ignored. As we challenge ourselves to identify with poverty, it’s important that we listen to and amplify the voices of people in poverty. If you don’t know where to start, check out some stories on @CompassionCA’s blog this week: compassion.ca/blog.
Share your outfit of the week and what you’re learning using #IdentifyWithPovertyChallenge—and as always, don’t forget to tag us and @compassionca!
06 | Sharing challenge
This week’s challenge is to share about your experience! What did you learn, what surprised you, what was the most difficult challenge? What next steps do you plan to take to respond to poverty?
Suggested Instagram caption:
#IdentifyWithPovertyChallenge Week 6! Can you believe we’re already at the end? This week’s challenge is to share about your experience and explore some next steps! What did you learn, what surprised you, what was the most difficult challenge? What next steps do you plan to take to respond to poverty? We can’t wait to hear what you have to share—be sure to use #IdentifyWithPovertyChallenge and tag us and @compassionca, too!
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TikTok Links
Introduction | Week 01 | Week 02 | Week 03 | Week 04 | Week 05 | Week 06
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