Earth File

About 25,000 people die every day of hunger or hunger-related causes, according to the United Nations. This is one person every three and a half seconds. Unfortunately, it is children who die most often. Yet there is plenty of food in the world for everyone. The problem is that hungry people are trapped in severe poverty. They lack the money to buy enough food to nourish them. Being constantly malnourished, they become weaker and often sick. This makes them increasingly less able to work, which then makes them even poorer and hungrier. This downward spiral often continues until death for them and their families.

This morning, while at work, I a came across this wonderful website called http://freerice.com/ A no profit website which donates 20 grains of rice for every word you get right. This donation is done by the website through United Nations to people who are leaving below poverty line.

FreeRice has two goals:
1)Provide English vocabulary to everyone for free.
2)Help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free.

By now, you must be wondering how this works and how Rice & Vocabulary are related. When you play the word game on the site, advertisements appear on the bottom of your screen. The money generated by these advertisements is then used to buy the rice. So by playing, you generate the money that pays for the rice donated to hungry people. The rice is paid for by the advertisers. This is regular advertising for these companies, but it is also something more. Through their advertising at FreeRice, these companies support both learning (free vocabulary for everyone) and reducing hunger (free rice for the hungry).

Now the next question arises in your mind is on the distribution system of rice. The rice is distributed by the United Nations World Food Program (WFP). The World Food Program is the world’s largest food aid agency, working with over 1,000 other organizations in over 75 countries. In addition to providing food, the World Food Program helps hungry people to become self-reliant so that they escape hunger for good.

The rice you donate makes a huge difference to the person who receives it. The rice you donate is more precious than anything in the world as you might save a child dieing in the arms of his beloved parents from hunger.

So, if you are GAME to help end poverty...Log on to http://freerice.com/ and start playing.