The No Slumber Challenge is your classic youth group sleepover with a difference. It follows the lives of a child-headed house over the course of a year. From the moment you start until the very end, participants must think and make choices as if they are the character they are given. It does not mean that they have to act – this isn’t a talent show – it’s about making choices and dealing with the consequences.
Right now, somewhere in the world, there are children left to fend for themselves, to protect their home, to care for their siblings, to make decisions that carry enormous weight but cannot be shared with parents or relatives.
This is what happens when young mothers and fathers die from AIDS-related illnesses. Families fall apart, and children lose their childhood. Medication exists for people with HIV or AIDS to come back from the brink of death – and survive. But way too often because of lack of info, or vehicles to transport people to clinics, or money for fuel, or a volunteer network to offer vital help and support, children lose one or both parents to AIDS-related illnesses.
For child-headed households this is the reality of life; hard – often impossibly difficult – choices about their lives with consequences that stretch across the years to come. Get your group to take part in The No Slumber Challenge and they will find their eyes being opened to a little of the reality of what life is like for just such children.
The No Slumber Challenge is a way of raising money. But more than that it's an opportunity to face a few simple questions; have you got what it takes to spend a day and a night experiencing how life is for millions of children orphaned by AIDS? Have you got the head, hands and heart to look after yourself and others in a world where life and death choices rest with you? Have you got the eyes to see what life is truly like?
This challenge is not easy. It will push and pull you in ways that will be uncomfortable and awkward, but it will leave your eyes wide open to the way life is for millions of children around the world. It will wake you up.
To pre-order your free The No Slumber Challenge pack, click here.
In the meantime, if you've not already, watch our short film The Brothers, the inspiring true story of Lawrence, Deo, Geoffrey and Joseph
here.