Would you like to help end world hunger? You can and it won't cost you anything. In fact, all you have to do is play a game at FreeRice.com. This ingenious website is "in the best spirit of the Internet, it offers education, entertainment and a way to change the world -- all for free," says the Los Angeles Times.
"FreeRice.com is an international, viral sensation," says CBS Evening News. "Folks from Thailand to Germany and India are just as enthusiastic ...improving thousands of lives, all with a simple, collective, click of a mouse."
TO END WORLD HUNGER & EDUCATE
FreeRice is a non-profit website run by the United Nations World Food Program and its partner the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. Its two goals are to help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free and provide education to everyone for free.
When you play learning games on the website, you earn 10 grains of rice for each right answer. At the bottom of your screen, sponsor banners show the advertisers who generate the money to pay for the rice you donate to hungry people. The games include: famous paintings, chemical symbols, English grammar or English vocabulary, geography (identify countries on the map and world capitals), language learning (French, German, Italian, Spanish), basic math and multiplication table.
"The rice you donate makes a huge difference to the person who receives it," says the website. "According to the United Nations, about 25,000 people die each day from hunger or hunger-related causes, most of them children. Though 10 grains of rice may seem like a small amount, it is important to remember that while you are playing, so are thousands of other people at the same time. It is everyone together that makes the difference. Thanks to you, FreeRice has generated enough rice to feed millions of people since it started in October 2007."
Whoa! It's been around for two years! I had never heard of FreeRice until yesterday, when I read a post by Hendree Milward, a Connecticut math teacher who has a blog. Since then I've been playing the English Vocabulary game, learning new words, accruing more and more rice grains -- and knowing that somewhere in the world, a person will eat rice that I helped provide. That's HUGE!
ETHICS AND HUNGER
My God, how can anyone look at this photograph and not desperately want to give this child some rice to eat.
It only takes a little time. When you need a break, go spend 10 or 15 minutes at FreeRice. Your grains of rice earned, when added to those of thousands of others around the world, will feed a lot of hungry people.
And share the info with others, who like me, may never have heard of this ingenious website.
By Sharon McEachern
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