Registered Slum Survivor Event
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Church Name:
St Pauls Church
Chippenham, Wiltshire

Church Contact:
Alison Munday

Pre event info
When was your Slum Survivor event?
26th - 28th October

What type of Slum Survivor event was it?
We held a Slum Survivor Weekend!

How many people got involved?
About 20 plus leaders!

Post event info:
What happened?
In the end we got 13 young people who took part in the event and 3 leaders.  One of the leaders had spent the weeks running up to the event contacting local businesses to get hold of materials for the slums. 

Everything we used was waste materials, in the end we ended up with a small mountain of pallets, bits of wood, sheets of cardboard, bubble wrap, plastic sheets and other sundry bits and bobs piled up against the church hall.  On the Friday evening the group arrived and set about building 4 slums in total.  All of them turned out to be waterproof and really warm thanks to the bubble wrap!  We spent some of the time using the inside of the church hall for bible studies, worship and challenges as it was too dark to see outside!

Lentils and rice seemed okay on the Friday evening, but by Sunday morning we had all lost our appetites completely (can't think why!!)  Another church group in the town were holding an event starting on the Saturday morning, so that afternoon we challenged them to the football challenge…our footballs were…um… interesting, so it was a relief that the other group had been donated a real ball by a local shop!  Obviously, the event was extremely serious and nobody was in to competition at all…(let's just say 2:0 to us and leave it at that!)

The biggest challenges for the kids were the demolition and crime challenges.  A few of the group were reduced to tears as their 'homes' were taken to pieces on the Saturday morning..  of course, the fact that it started to rain at that point didn't exactly help matters.  The 'families' discovered that tensions can run very high when you're tired, wet and discouraged, so we had to have an emergency mini-mars bar to calm everyone down afterwards!

As a leader, I was crazily proud of the young people who completed the event.  On Sunday we fed back to the church and an impromptu collection added to the sponsor money raised, we're still collecting it in, but are expecting in the region of £550 in total.

The group gelled so closely and the worship, prayer and Bible studies were amazing.  The weekend was finished off by a joint celebration with the other groups in the town who had taken part.  We ate calorific puddings, shared some fun stories and worshipped our amazing God!  What a weekend!!  All of the group have fed back what a fantastic time they had.  One of them commented afterwards, "I feel lonely, I miss Slum Survivor!"

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