The 40 Hour Famine is one of Australia's biggest youth fundraising events. It's a chance to do something real: go without food or something else that really matters to you for 40 hours and raise money for kids living in poverty overseas. It's a great way for young Australians to get a taste of what life's like for children who have to go without - every single day.

From 5.30pm August 15 until lunchtime on August 17, the Yass Youth Group participated in the World Vision 40 Hour Famine.

In the past we have always gone without food while some people have gone without furniture, technology or electricity but this year we decided to do something a little bit different, we went for the 40 hours without running water. We thought we would be able to impose a bit of empathy on ourselves by setting up and simulating a village in a third world country.

We had tents set up for sleeping in (remember, it frosted Saturday), a fire bin to keep us warm and one gas stove to cook on. We had no access to water unless we walked the 2km to the Anglican church carrying empty coke and juice bottles which we could fill up and take back to our camp. From that water we could drink, cook and wash.

All 11 youth participating also had to role-play a different job that typical people would have in a small village. We had shopkeepers, chicken and cow farmers, veggie growers, sweat shop workers and people who worked for the tourist industry. A shop keeper would have things like rice and bread and would then have to barter with the chicken farmer to get eggs and the sweat shop workers had to buy milk from the cow farmer who in turn could then pay for his sugar from another shop. And so the pattern went. It was a lot of fun but also quite serious because if you didn’t barter or had no money then you didn’t get to eat… “How do I buy all my dinner with only $1.50, that’s not fair!”