Church members across Notts are being challenged to live on just £2.50 a week plus a basic food parcel, as part of the 'Destitution Challenge' during Lent to highlight the plight of destitute asylum seekers for whom such poverty is a daily reality.

The Rainbow Project is based at St Stephen and St Paul's Church in Hyson Green, Nottingham, and is involved in supporting asylum seekers and refugees. It is currently backing the Church Action on Poverty's nationwide 'Living Ghosts' campaign which last year raised several thousand pounds towards refugee funds.

The project is asking Christians to taste the life of a destitute asylum seeker in the UK by taking part in its Destitution Challenge.

Rainbow Project administrator, John Jones, said: "If you have ever wondered what it's like to be destitute, join us in our 'Destitution Challenge'."

Jones is challenging people in the Nottingham area to try living for one week, from 21 to 28 February 2007, or at least one week during Lent, on the contents of a typical weekly food parcel which the project supplies to destitute asylum seekers, plus £2.50 in cash.

"Throughout this week, we hope that Destitution Challenge participants will share their thoughts and experiences with others and us."

He explained that under the 2002 Nationality, Immigration & Asylum Act, 'failed' asylum seekers have their state support withdrawn unless they agree to sign up to return home voluntarily. This applies even to those who cannot be returned because it is unsafe.

Further support for Nottingham asylum seekers is also being sought by the Bishop of Southwell & Nottingham, the Rt Rev George Cassidy, who launched a Lent appeal this month in support of an accommodation scheme for the most vulnerable asylum seekers.

He said: "Any nation can look after its elite, its first class citizens, the powerful and privileged but the acid test of a nation is the way it cares for those who, for whatever reason, find themselves marked down as second class or third class, powerless and marginalised."

This Lent, Bishop Cassidy has selected the Nottingham Arimathea Trust as the focus of his first Lent appeal. The Arimathea Trust is a new project, based in Nottingham and backed by the Diocese of Southwell & Nottingham, which provides short-term accommodation for female asylum seekers who may be pregnant or have young children. Volunteers working with the trust will also aim to befriend asylum seekers and offer them practical support.

"I hope people will help me to demonstrate God's own concern for the stranger, the outcast and vulnerable, by making a contribution to this project," said Bishop Cassidy.