Selma City Schools will host a Poverty Simulation Dec. 5 from 8 a.m. until noon at Selma High School.

The event, which is the first in a series that will be held over the coming months, tasks participants with surviving a week in the shoes of a poverty-stricken family.

“The whole purpose is to develop empathy for the conditions that poverty creates,” said Selma City Schools Superintendent Dr. Avis Williams. “It’s challenging because things don’t always work out.”

The simulation will be broken down into four, 15-minute sessions, each of which represents one week.

In that week, participants must find a way to provide for their families, including maintaining a home, handling health obligations, managing childcare and more.

Participants will be given a packet that includes their roles within the family – some will be children suffering from Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and others will be mothers, fathers or a number of other roles – as well as their families assets and obligations.

Volunteers will serve as banks, pawnbrokers and other institutions with which participants must interact in order to survive.

Williams said she first encountered the program while working in Tuscaloosa. When she was unable to coordinate the times with the group that runs the program, Alabama Possible, she rented the packets and hosted the event independently.

Selma will be following the same route.

While Williams noted that the event can be a team building exercise, as well as a fun experience for those involved, she noted that it is not intended to make light of the dire situations poor families endure.

“I always like to emphasize that it is not a game,” Williams said. “At the end of the day, it’s a simulation of the realities that some of our families are living in.”

If you would like to be involved, contact Selma City Schools Community Engagement Specialist Courtney Washington at courtney.washington@selmacityschools.org by Friday.