StudentMediaWire

Poster for 'yaD' competition, Bollocks to Poverty

Start your day with a curry and end it by partying in your pyjamas.

That’s the suggestion of poverty charity ActionAid, which wants students across the UK to turn their universities upside down with a day in reverse - a ‘yaD’.

As part of its Bollocks to Poverty initiative, the charity is offering a trip of a lifetime to South Africa for the students’ union that puts on the best event.

“A yaD is literally a day backwards,” says the charity’s spokesperson. “It can start with a three-course dinner party or a group curry, continue with some early bar hopping then a bit of daytime TV.

“As night falls, slip into those comfy pyjamas and slippers for the best breakfast party ever- have orange juice cocktails, vodka-laced cornflakes and a full English.

“By getting together with your SU and turning your day upside down, you’ll be helping to put the world to rights. Whether it be though cereal-eating competitions, an English breakfast cook off or a pyjama-clad street collection, all the money and awareness raised from your yaD event will help ActionAid’s vital work fighting global poverty and injustice around the world.”

ActionAid will be taking two students from the union that puts on the best yaD to South Africa. The winners will get to help a community in a remote village to build a training centre, and they will see first hand just how the money raised changes lives forever.

The winning yaDs will not necessarily be the biggest. Judges are looking for the more original, creative or outrageous. The only condition is that the yaD must be held by 31 January 2010.

For a free event pack detailing everything organisers need to know, plus themed games and fundraising ideas, decorations, banners and lots of prizes and freebies to give out like limited edition mugs and pillowcases, register at www.actionaid.org.uk/universities.

ActionAid works in Africa, Asia and the Americas to end global poverty and injustice.