An event designed to allow Cambridge students to experience a day in the life of a one of the world’s 863 million slum-dwellers has divided opinion on the extent to which it is appropriate.

The “Slum in the Cellars: Poverty Simulation” event, to be hosted by the non-profit groups Empathy Action and Giving What We Can: Cambridge, will entail the turning of the renowned Clare Cellars event space into a “run-down oppressive slum”, allowing visitors to encounter “the daily reality of devastating poverty”.

As the event’s Facebook page described, for two hours, participants will be placed “in the position of those living in extreme poverty to give a fresh perspective on the issues involved.

Roughly 1.3 billion people live in extreme poverty, defined as surviving on less than the equivalent of $1.25 per day. The event's organisers hope that “the simulation will show something of what it means to live hand-to-mouth in a poverty trap”.

According to promotional material, attendees should expect to be placed “into ‘family units’ and attempt to make enough money to pay for food, water, rent and sanitation, all the while trying to send one of their group to school”. 

However, the event’s premise has attracted strong criticism from members of the Cambridge student body. In reaction to the posting online of the event, one student wrote that the event was “deeply disturbing, inappropriate and an affront to the dignity of the people who actually live in poverty every day”.

Another student described how they felt it was “making sport and a game of lived realities” and that it was “completely unacceptable”. 

Nevertheless, the event – which is free of charge – has taken place in other locations such as in London, where it has been lauded as a great success by high-profile figures such as Ban Ki-Moon and Richard Branson.

Jacob Williamson, who attended that London event, described the benefits of the event, saying that being “supplied with photos of people living this in a certain lifestyle and struggling to achieve certain goals, actually proceeding to simulate such goals and actions yourself, and see how little they go to succeeding in the context of the game – that does bring things to life in a way simply reading such facts might not.”

Nevertheless, the two-hour long event was subject to further criticism, this time in regards towards the way in which the event has been marketed and staged.

One student took issue with the event’s Facebook page, describing how they believed the use of a “picture of a black child to advertise and market poverty (was) not only blatantly racist but a reinforcement of all the disempowering, negative stereotypes that the developing world has and still is fighting”.

The event page on Clare MCR's website hosting a description of the event has since been removed. In response to criticism of this page, the Clare College MCR Secretary told Varsity: "The Clare College MCR has no link to the event."

"The MCR bulletin is an unmoderated news feed of adverts sent to us to display. The Clare College MCR does not control, monitor or guarantee the information contained in these sites or information contained in links to other external websites, and does not endorse any views expressed or products or services offered therein."

The idea that the participants, upon finishing their time in “the slum” would go onto have a drink in the College Bar was described by a 2nd year Selwynite as “absurd” and “counter-intuitive”, although he did accept that the hosts involved most likely “had the best of intentions” and the idea was “theoretically sound”, but “regrettably poorly implemented”.