POVERTY STOPLIGHT OLYMPIC GAMES: ENGAGING YOUTH IN OVERCOMING POVERTY

In 2015, the Millennium Development goals were substituted by the Sustainable Development goals. The goals call first and foremost for the elimination of extreme poverty. At Fundación Paraguaya, the country’s largest NGO, we found ourselves asking the following questions:
1) Where do schools and education fit in with these goals?
2) Are schools and classrooms promoting the Sustainable Development Goals and the elimination of poverty?
3) How can youth contribute to the elimination of poverty in their homes and communities?

These questions led the organization to develop Poverty Stoplight Olympic Games, where groups of high schools across Paraguay compete in a contest, with the end goal of bringing awareness to students about poverty and their own personal abilities to overcome it. Using a visual survey, students identify their families’ and communities’ current situation and create an action plan to help them escape poverty. This competition rewards students who teach community members the benefits of, for example, opening a savings account, drafting a monthly budget, and registering their children under public health insurance, along with other best practices related to financial literacy and community building. In essence, it is a competition to see who gets their families out of poverty the fastest.

Fundación Paraguaya’s objective is to leverage the power of youth to inspire their communities to lift themselves out of poverty through the transformative approach of “helping people help themselves.” The purpose of the Poverty Stoplight Olympic games is to begin an exchange that de-stigmatizes poverty and provides students with tools that contribute to lifting their families out of this condition. To date, over 2,500 Paraguayan youth from disadvantaged backgrounds have participated in the challenge. Its success has prompted Fundación Paraguaya to expand the program in Paraguay and internationally to Nigeria and Tanzania in 2016.

This paper will discuss the experiences of carrying out the program in Latin America and future plans to carry out the program in Africa, and it will offer guidance to educators interested in replicating the program.