Play a game to feed the poor

Yes, by playing a word-meaning game on the Internet and every time you answer right you get to donate 10grains of rice the feed the hungry and the poor across the world.

The game
FreeRice available online at www.freerice.com, is a creative web-based vocabulary game. For each click on a correct answer, the website donates money to buy 10 grains of rice. The rice is distributed by the United Nations-WFP.

This Internet word game has generated enough rice to feed 50,000 people for one day, through the UN's World Food Programme (WFP).According to Josette Sheeran, Head of the WFP, "FreeRice really hits home how the web can be harnessed to raise awareness and funds for he world's number one emergency.’

The Spiral
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 themselves. 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.

The solution
The UN estimates that the cost to end world hunger completely, along with diseases related to hunger and poverty, is about $195 billion a year. Twenty-two countries have joined together to raise this money by each contributing 0.7% (less than 1%) of their national income. Some of the countries have already met this goal while others have failed to fulfill their pledge and even you could pay up the deficit.

The programme
WFP is the United Nations frontline agency in the fight against global hunger. Operations aim to:
· Save lives in refugee crises and other emergencies
· Improve nutrition and quality of life of world's most vulnerable people at critical times in their lives
· Enable development by (a) helping people build assets that benefit them directly; (b) promoting the self-reliance of poor people and communities
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 idea
Word about the game has spread with the help of internet bloggers and websites like Facebook and YouTube thanks to viral marketing. FreeRice is the invention of US online fundraising pioneer John Breen and having started on 7th October 2007 FreeRice has now raised 1bn grains of rice.

The benefit
The freerice vocabulary game will help you to better yourself to formulate your ideas and Write better papers, emails and business letters. For students, this game will help them get better grades in school or college and possibly score higher on tests like the SAT, GRE, LSAT and GMAT. To anyone in any part of the world, improving your vocabulary can improve your life. Perhaps even greater is the investment your donated rice makes in hungry human beings, enabling them to function and be productive.

The Revenue
FreeRice has two goals: Provide English vocabulary to everyone for free and help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free. Several sponsors who have joined the programme advertise on this site. Companies advertising on the website provide the money to the WFP to buy and distribute the rice. This is regular advertising for these companies, but it is also something more.

The score
FreeRice has a custom database containing thousands of words at 50 varying levels of difficulty. The game starts by giving you words at different levels of difficulty and then, based on how you do, assigns you an approximate starting level. When you get a word wrong, you go to an easier level. When you get three words in a row right, you go to a harder level.
This one-to-three ratio is best for keeping you at the “outer fringe” of your vocabulary, where learning can take place. The program keeps track of how many people get each word right or wrong, and then adjusts each word’s difficulty level accordingly. So the words at the easiest levels are the ones that people most often get right. As more and more people have played the game, these levels have become increasingly more accurate.

The links
FreeRice is a sister site of the world poverty site, www.poverty.com. More details on the WFP can be had at www.wfp.org. For your websites you can find banners for Freerice at www.freerice.com/banners.html. Details on the donations can be found at www.wfp.org/how_to_help/Ways_to_Donate/freerice.asp?section=4&sub_section=5.