Play and help feed the world
Posted by michellemoquin on April 10th, 2008
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuAShsaRkg8&hl=en]
Are you a person with an extensive vocabulary? Do you like to play games? Do you like to help others? If you answered yes to any of these read on…
This was sent to me and I had so much fun playing that I thought that I would share it with all of you. Be forewarned though…this game is quite addicting! It’s called ‘Free Rice’. Have you heard of it? This is how you play:
When you click on ‘Free Rice’ a page will come up with a word and 4 choices. Click on the choice that you feel best defines the word. If you get it correct, 20 grains of rice will be donated to the United Nations World Food Program. Continue on with a new word, and if you get 5 words correct, 100 grains will be donated and so on and so on. But be ready…the words get more difficult. I know…it doesn’t sound like much rice but when 25,000 people die of hunger every day, and a half a million people are clicking on the game every day, all of this rice adds up! I just love it! The more you play this award winning game, the more you feed hungry people and you learn a little something too. The more words you know the more people you feed. Everyone benefits. Don’t you just love this game?
Since October 2007, clicks on the free rice vocabulary game have already fed 700,000 people….over 27,000 are refugees from Mayanmar who are sheltering in Bangladesh. And thanks to everyone who has participated these grains have also been feeding pregnant women in Cambodia, schoolchildren in Uganda and Bhutanese refugees in Nepal.
Kids love playing this game and they are playing it all over the world! But knowing some of you busy people out there, I can hear some of you already, “I just don’t have the time. I love this concept though, can I donate to this cause?’ Yep, you can do that too. For 16 bucks, a tax deductible donation, WFP will purchase a 25 kilo sack of rice for you and send it off to those in need. How easy is that?
Here is a revealing stat: The United Nations estimates that it will take about 195 billion dollars a year to end world hunger completely along with diseases related to hunger and poverty. Twenty-two countries including the United States have joined together to raise this money by contributing 0.7% of national income. Interestingly, Sweden, Luxembourg, Norway, the Netherlands and Denmark have already met their goal in 2006. Others, including the United States, are being a little slow. In fact, the US hasn’t even made a commitment of when the goal will be met, and for each $100 earned in the country the US is only donating .17 cents compared to the countries above who are donating between .80-.103 cents. We are the second to the lowest donator of the 22 countries participating and we are one of six not even scheduled to make our commitment of 0.7%. Sound familiar? Hmmm….and how much are we spending every day in Iraq and when are we scheduled to leave?
Interestingly, the six countries above are all democracies. All that is necessary for them, which includes us, to reach the 0.7% goal is for enough of the citizens to show their support. How about showing your support today by clicking away?
Have fun!
Gratefully your blog host, michelle
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April 12th, 2008 at 10:58 am
Great blog topic. Also, a great insight in the last paragraphs. Such a mirror our government creates for our society…It will be great to be rid of this administration. Too bad it has taken so long. I can’t believe that our Congresspersons or Senators have had no balls to get them out through impeaching or sensor, but getting head in the oval office does just that!?
Sad…