Registered Slum Survivor Event
Church Name:
Davenant Foundation School, Loughton, Essex
Church Contact:
Nicole Tribe
Pre event info
When was the Slum Survivor event?
29th - 31st October
What type of Slum Survivor event was it?
We held a Slum Survivor Weekend
How many people got involved?
Around 17...
Post event info:
What happened?
So...we decided to do things a little differently and attempt Slum Survivor at school. An interesting experience, but one that really made an impact. After months of planning (I lie, it was more like a week of last minute panic) we started on the 28th October, building the slums (in the rain may I add) which took 5 hours, 38 palettes, three tarpaulins, ridiculous amounts of cardboard and insulation, one old gate, too many nails and a fluctuating workforce of around 15 max. When all was done it looked fairly impressive...although not quite impressive enough to make us feel any more comfortable that we were going to be spending the next 3 days living in it...
Anyway, we arrived at school bright and early (7.00am) with all our schoolbooks, sleeping bags and...well that was about it really...
We also wore our Slum Survivor t-shirts (complete with iron-on logos). It was quite a tough experience because we had to juggle meals with lessons, someone having to keep watch on the slums and we were constantly bombarded with questions. Which, considering we all looked pretty rough, was fairly unwanted attention.
The evenings were very cold (I think we got down to around 1 C at night) and it got dark only half an hour after the end of school so homework (which still had to be done unfortunately) was scribbled under the stars with the occasional rice stain. Speaking of which, having to eat rice every day whilst everyone is strolling around with chocolate, hot cheesy pasta and smoothies was rather discouraging but strangely unifying.
The evenings were long but quite enjoyable, a couple of mass Run-Out games got us into trouble with the caretaker but there was always our incinerator (the best, and warmest part) video camera and camp songs to entertain us. The mornings however, were a very different experience, the cleaners came in at 4am and from 7am we were hounded by schoolchildren all wanting to know how we slept.
We emerged from our sleeping bags on Tuesday morning, having had no shower or make-up to disguise the state of ourselves, to find an array of kids surrounding our taped off slums and peering in curiously. Even not wearing uniform around school made a difference, wherever we went people stared and watched. This has probably been the most extreme event the school has done so it was quite high profile and relatively new for everyone. However we had so much support from students and teachers, and people were so generous!
We have so far raised about £2,200 and still have more to come in! Many enthusiastic young people are still planning a full school slum experience using the school field to host 1100 students under tarpaulin although I think there may be a few practical issues there...
Probably the hardest part was the food and the fact that we couldn't shower or change so we never felt clean. Also, lessons on next to no nutrition and a busy three days due to publicity, general management and various extra curricular activites that still had to be attended made for hard work and tiring schedules without much time for relaxation.
I think everyone would say though that it was a very eye-opening experience, and it made us so grateful for our own lifestyles. One of the wiser slummers said
"I think the biggest luxury was the knowledge that we were going home soon, not to say we didn't enjoy it, but being able to plan a good meal at the end and looking forward to hot showers and change of clothes kept us going. The people in real slums don't have that, and I think it would be the hopelessness of the situation which would really get to me."
We all thank God for some timely discoveries of building material and (I suspect) some tweaking in the areas where we (or most frequently I) failed to organise matters properly- things just seemed to work out perfectly!
Special thanks to our headteacher Mr Seward who gave us permission in the first place, despite major practical problems and gave his full support to the event throughout.
Our school Site Manager sacrificed his beautifully-kept grass verge (now complete with rice and burnt ash), and we are very grateful to our main advocate Mr Dave Paul who publicised the event and loaned us the incinerator! I must also thank my parents who helped us out of several sticky situations including transporting half a ton of post-slum materials to the tip, and every member of our churches who gave their time, tarpaulin and trailers towards this very worthy cause!
And finally to our two ever-willing youth leaders Tim and Beth who didn't take their responsibilities too seriously (resulting in some interesting games with fire) and loads of fun - an excellent combination we felt.
Want to update this page with stories, more info, pictures and other ideas? Then email info@soulaction.org with your requests and we'll get right on it!
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