The head of Tearfund, Matthew Frost, said, "I don't know how many of you have lived in a slum but I recommend the experience to you. When you allow poverty to come up close and personal in that way, it changes you, and it changes you forever."
Rachel Tiffany, a practising Christian, is a school student at King Charles I School in Kidderminster. She was so inspired by her experience with Slum Survivor that she now runs the project with other students at her school and is encouraging other schools to take part.
"After I came back from doing it, I realised how lucky I was. I looked at my bedroom and everything I owned, and it made me sick just how much I had," said Rachel. "It doesn't matter and it's so irrelevant but it's so easy to get caught up in the materialistic stuff.
"Until you experience it, you have no idea really. It's just numbers and you can blank it out and ignore it all," she added.
Her friend, Sian Astill, had never stepped in a church before taking part in Slum Survivor but was converted to Christianity through her experience.
"The more we talked about slums and losing people you love, it just challenged me," she said.
"I grew up in a really 'providing' environment," she said. "I would be on the internet for hours, but now I just don't need it."
As part of Slum Survivor, participants have to watch their own slum dwellings be knocked down before having to re-build them again. It is a poignant reminder of real slum dwellers whose homes are often demolished by city authorities that want rid of them.
"Seeing it knocked down really hit me and really made me think 'that's their home', and that I wanted to help them," said Sian.
Rachel added, "When the bulldozer came round the corner and hit the slum, everyone was just standing there and crying. I realised a lot about praising God in the hard times."
Slum Survivor on the web: soulaction.org/slumsurvivor/
