A handful of lentils, chickpea and sardines are all a refugee gets to eat in a week and during Refugee Week students at St Columba Anglican School have been doing the same.
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Twenty students in years 10 and 11 are taking part in the Rations Challenge which seeks to raise awareness and funds for the plight of refugees around the world.
Teacher Kayla Arthur proposed the challenge to students in her society and culture class and a group of them decided to take up the challenge.
"We have been learning about refugees in class and a group of the students decided they wanted to take up the Rations Challenge this week," Mrs Arthur said.
"They each got a box of supplies which included 400 grams of chickpeas, lentils and flour along with 1.5 kilograms of rice and 100 grams or sardines or tofu.
"They did have the option of 'earning' more food and one student raised $1,100 and as a reward got spices.
"The students then had the option of taking up the challenge for three, five or seven days."
So far the team have raised more than $6,000 for refugees as part of the challenge.
Jenya Gowda, Jemma and Tait McIntyre, Isabella Webb and Anneke Oliver are five of the students who took up the challenge and said it has given them all a new appreciation for what refugees go through.
"We have been raising awareness and funds for refugees to help buy them supplies," Jenya said.
"We have been eating rations for a few days now and students are doing it for three days, five days or seven days.
"It has been pretty hard but everything you think about being hungry you also feel sad for those who have to eat rations all the time."
"For me it was a mental thing and at school everyone kept asking if we were hungry which of course made us hungry," Isabella said.
"One of the biggest things for me was not eating snacks and watching everyone else eat food was pretty hard."
The students said the challenge was an eyeopening experience into just what little food a refugee has to eat.
"These people are locked up most of the time with nothing to eat and they haven't even done anything wrong other than fleeing a bad situation," Anneke said.
"I think we all have a new appreciation for what they have to go through because even just going without food has been pretty hard let alone not knowing what your future holds living in a camp."
"In class we had a visit from a Sri Lankan refugee and it was really interesting listening to him and his story," Jemma said.
"We also watched a video showing refugees and how long they have been eating rations and it was heartbreaking and I think that touched lots of people."
The group also said they experimented with the limited supplies they had to make meals more enjoyable.
"I really learned about wasting food and that is something that I hope to continue not doing after the challenge," Jemma said.
"With just flour and water we made flatbread, crepes and pancakes and it was interesting that they actually tasted different even though they were made with two ingredients," Tait said.
"But I think we are all looking forward to it being over which unfortunately is something a refugee can't do."
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