POW Rice Challenge

Rations for Year 9 History Students

Last week, a number of Year 9 History students took the opportunity to participate in a POW Rice Challenge. Students who elected to be involved collected their boiled rice rations at the beginning of the school day and were required to eat only the rations throughout the school day. The rations consisted of ¾ cup of plain, cold boiled rice. Students were challenged to last as long as they could without eating other food.

The aim of the Rice Challenge was for students to gain a small understanding of how difficult survival would have been for Australian POW’s held in Japanese camps during WWII. These men were starved, being given rations of this size or smaller for the entire duration of the period of their internment. They also had to complete hard, physical labour during their internment. Some of these men endured the starvation and physical punishment and torture in the Japanese POW camps for up to four years.

The students participating in the challenge did extremely well, with more than half completing the six-hour challenge, and some even forcing themselves to endure the hunger for 12 hours. Students reported feeling very food-obsessed and even stories of extreme ‘Hanger’. They said concentration during classes was extremely difficult and they all experienced a severe lack of energy through the day.

While this activity only gave a small glimpse of the challenges our soldiers experienced during their internment, students were able to recognize the difficulties they faced with the lack of food to sustain them. All students who participated deserve congratulations for challenging themselves physically to try to gain a deeper understanding of this event in our history.