Ideas for your projects:
The following are examples of what other students have done in past years:

• Poverty Issues Series: What are the issues surrounding poverty?  Spend 5 days examining five issues in detail.  Possible issues include hunger, shelter, illness, education, employment, unsanitary conditions, and lack of representation.
• Welcome Home Housing Simulation: Each student participant is assigned a character with a distinct economic background, family and biography and will seek housing from representative from apartment complexes, public housing, rescue missions and private home builders.
• Extended Sleep-out: Sleeping out for a week is considerably more noticeable and challenging then for only one night.  Each night can incorporate a different reflection activity.  Consider limiting how many showers or meals participants can have.
• Poverty Fair: Hold a fair and invite organizations related to combating poverty.  Other service groups, community health organizations, local shelters and informational displays should be present.
• Announce It: Say something in your school's morning announcements or campus newspaper each day for a week.  This announcement could include a national or global poverty statistic. 
• Poverty for a Week: Create unique situations for participants to experience and live including getting around without a vehicle, having to secure childcare, and looking for local service organizations to help you.
• Hunger Banquet: This simulation by Oxfam International is a dramatization of the unequal distribution of resources and wealth in the world.  For more details go to http://harvest.oxfamamerica.org/login_form and complete the free registration to download hunger banquet scripts.

What could the week look like?
Each week of events will be different in each community.  Here is an example of a very full week of events in which the group incorporated the campaign events:

• Monday:
  1) Cover your campus and/or community with startling statistic information about the state of housing and poverty in your community and throughout the world.
  2) Pass out information about poverty housing and the week's activities.
  3) Article in the school newspaper/church bulletin/organization newsletter about the week's events.
• Tuesday:
  1) Research what it takes to apply for low-income housing with Habitat for Humanity and with other non-profit or governmental organizations.
  2) Host a guest speaker at a school assembly or group gathering; invite someone from Habitat for Humanity to speak about poverty and housing issues in your community.
• Wednesday:
  1) Collaborate with another student group to hold an activity.
  2) Coordinate a sleep-over or a prayer vigil.
• Thursday:
  1) Sponsor a letter writing campaign by setting up tables in several prominent locations on campus.  For a list of issues important to Habitat for Humanity and affordable housing, please visit www.habitatla.org and click on Advocate.
• Friday:
  1) Hold a candlelight vigil to reflect on the lives of those people who live in poverty and inadequate shelter around the world.
  2) Visit a local elementary school and talk to students about poverty housing and homelessness.

For more resources:
For additional resources and information that will help your student group become effective advocates, click on the links below:

• Youth Programs Advocacy Toolkit:
  The Advocacy Toolkit was created by the Youth Programs department as a comprehensive guide to developing youth advocacy.
• The Advocacy Book: Poverty Housing
  A lesson plan and interactive coloring book for children ages 5 to 8.  The book raises student's awareness of poverty and poverty housing on a youth-focused level at which they can relate.
• Paper House Campaign
  Advocacy is a when anyone speaks out for what they believe in.  Children of all ages can become advocates for an end to substandard housing.  The Paper House Campaign lets youth as young as 5 years old communicate their concerns to their local lawmakers. 
• Welcome Home Housing Simulation
  Using the Welcome Home Housing Simulation, groups of teens role-play as homeless individuals who must seek adequate and affordable housing in relation to their different situations.  Participants learn about different aspects of housing assistance, such as applying for a lease and Section 8.
• Sample letter to members of Congress
  Make your voice heard! Start a letter writing campaign using this sample letter and send them to members of Congress to let them know that affordable housing is a serious issue. 

For a list of schools participating in Act! Speak! Build! week 2007, click here.