Freerice

Last updated
Freerice
Type of site
Click-to-donate site
Headquarters Rome, Italy
Owner World Food Programme
Created byJohn Breen
URL freerice.com
CommercialNo
Launched2007;17 years ago (2007)
Current statusActive
A rice bowl on a globe, filling up every 50 grains Freerice-WFP.png
A rice bowl on a globe, filling up every 50 grains

Freerice, originally FreeRice, is a website-based application that allows players to donate rice to families in developing countries by playing a multiple-choice quiz game. For every question a user answers correctly, 10 grains of rice are donated via the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). There are over 50 categories, including English Proverbs, Multiplication Table, German, Flags of the World, and World Heritage Sites. The categories can be played on up to five difficulty levels, from easiest to hardest, depending on the subject. A user's total score is displayed as a mound of rice and the number of grains earned.

Contents

History

The website went live on October 7, 2007, and 830 grains of rice were donated on its first day. The site was created by John Breen, a computer programmer, to help his son study for the SAT exam. [1] The second word in its name was originally capitalized as "FreeRice". On November 20, 2007, the WFP launched a campaign to "feed a child for Thanksgiving", encouraging internet users "to take time out from traditionally the busiest online shopping period of the year and help the hungry" by playing the game. [2] For a brief while, the amount of rice donated per correct answer was increased to 20 grains. Within a few months, this amount was reduced to 10 grains of rice per answer.

In March 2009, Breen donated the FreeRice website to the World Food Programme. [1]

Freerice 2.0 launch

In September 2010, the UN World Food Programme launched a new version of the game with social networking, groups, rankings, and achievements. As part of the launch, the site dropped the second capitalization in its name, going from "FreeRice" to "Freerice".

Freerice Beta Launch

In August 2018, the UN World Food Programme launched a newer, more improved version of the game on a new website. Apps for iOS and Android have also been released with this version of the website.

FreeRice grain totals.svg

Effectiveness

In its first ten months of operation, Freerice donated over 42 billion grains of rice. One month after the inception of the viral marketing program, users had earned enough points for one billion grains of rice. The United Nations World Food Program stated that this amount could feed 50,000 people for one day, [3] since it takes 400 grams or about 19,200 grains of rice to feed one adult for a day. [4] Using this calculation, enough rice was donated in 2008 to feed over 6,000 people daily for each day of that year. [5] Since its inception, as of April 3, 2013, Freerice players had earned sufficient rice for over 10 million meals, assuming 2 meals per day.

Awards

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">World Food Programme</span> Food-assistance branch of the UN

The World Food Programme (WFP) is an international organization within the United Nations that provides food assistance worldwide. It is the world's largest humanitarian organization and the leading provider of school meals. Founded in 1961, WFP is headquartered in Rome and has offices in 87 countries. In 2023 it supported over 152 million people, and is present in more than 120 countries and territories.

A click-to-donate site is a website where users can click a button to generate a donation for a charity without spending any of their own money. The money for the donation comes from advertisers whose banners are displayed each time a user clicks the button. While not directly contributing, visitors are making a difference in the sense that, had they not visited, no donation would have been given.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hunger</span> Sustained inability to eat sufficient food

In politics, humanitarian aid, and the social sciences, hunger is defined as a condition in which a person does not have the physical or financial capability to eat sufficient food to meet basic nutritional needs for a sustained period. In the field of hunger relief, the term hunger is used in a sense that goes beyond the common desire for food that all humans experience, also known as an appetite. The most extreme form of hunger, when malnutrition is widespread, and when people have started dying of starvation through lack of access to sufficient, nutritious food, leads to a declaration of famine.

Famine relief is an organized effort to reduce starvation in a region in which there is famine. A famine is a phenomenon in which a large proportion of the population of a region or country are so undernourished that death by starvation becomes increasingly common. In spite of the much greater technological and economic resources of the modern world, famine still strikes many parts of the world, mostly in the developing nations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Web feed</span> Data format

On the World Wide Web, a web feed is a data format used for providing users with frequently updated content. Content distributors syndicate a web feed, thereby allowing users to subscribe a channel to it by adding the feed resource address to a news aggregator client. Users typically subscribe to a feed by manually entering the URL of a feed or clicking a link in a web browser or by dragging the link from the web browser to the aggregator, thus "RSS and Atom files provide news updates from a website in a simple form for your computer."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Midday Meal Scheme</span> Lunch program for students in India

The Mid Day Meal Scheme is a school meal programme in India designed to better the nutritional status of school-age children nationwide. The scheme has been renamed as PM-POSHAN Scheme. The programme supplies free lunches on working days for children in government primary and upper primary schools, government aided Anganwadis, Madarsa and Maqtabs. Serving 120 million children in over 1.27 million schools and Education Guarantee Scheme centres, the Midday Meal Scheme is the largest of its kind in the world.

The Hunger Site is the original click-to-donate site created in 1999 that gets sponsorship from advertisers in return for delivering users who will see their advertisements. The Hunger site encourages visitors to click a button on the site, once per day, asserting that each unique click results in a donation "equivalent" to 1.1 cups of food. The Hunger Site is not a charity; it is a for-profit corporation which donates the revenue from its advertising banner to selected charities. Currently, these are Millennium Promise, Food Recovery Network, Partners in Health, Feeding America and Mercy Corps.

Food Force is an educational game published by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in 2005. Due to its content, it is considered a serious game. Players take on missions to distribute food in a famine-affected country and to help it to recover and become self-sufficient again. At the same time they learn about hunger in the real world and the WFP's work to prevent it.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">School meal</span> Meal provided to students at school

A school meal is a meal provided to students and sometimes teachers at a school, typically in the middle or beginning of the school day. Countries around the world offer various kinds of school meal programs, and altogether, these are among the world's largest social safety nets. An estimated 380 million school children around the world receive meals at their respective schools. The extent of school feeding coverage varies from country to country, and as of 2020, the aggregate coverage rate worldwide is estimated to be 27%.

Yahoo! Answers was a community-driven question-and-answer (Q&A) website or knowledge market owned by Yahoo! where users would ask questions and answer those submitted by others, and upvote them to increase their visibility. Questions were organised into categories with multiple sub-categories under each to cover every topic users may ask questions on, such as beauty, business, finance, cars, electronics, entertainment, games, gardening, science, news, politics, parenting, pregnancy, and travel. The number of poorly formed questions and inaccurate answers made the site a target of ridicule.

The North Korean famine, also known as the Arduous March, was a period of mass starvation together with a general economic crisis from 1994 to 1998 in North Korea. During this time there was an increase in defection from North Korea which peaked towards the end of the famine period.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Josette Sheeran</span> American non-profit executive and diplomat

Josette Sheeran is an American non-profit executive and diplomat who served in the United States Department of State. Sheeran serves as the seventh president and CEO of Asia Society since June 10, 2013. Sheeran was also the United Nations's Special Envoy for Haiti.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Odnoklassniki</span> Social networking service

Odnoklassniki, abbreviated as OK or OK.ru, is a social networking service primarily in Russia and former Soviet Republics. The site was launched on March 4, 2006 by Albert Popkov and is currently owned by VK.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2007–2008 world food price crisis</span> World food prices increased dramatically in 2007 and the 1st and 2nd quarter of 2008

World food prices increased dramatically in 2007 and the first and second quarter of 2008, creating a global crisis and causing political and economic instability and social unrest in both poor and developed nations. Although the media spotlight focused on the riots that ensued in the face of high prices, the ongoing crisis of food insecurity had been years in the making. Systemic causes for the worldwide increases in food prices continue to be the subject of debate. After peaking in the second quarter of 2008, prices fell dramatically during the late-2000s recession but increased during late 2009 and 2010, reaching new heights in 2011 and 2012 at a level slightly higher than the level reached in 2008. Over the next years, prices fell, reaching a low in March 2016 with the deflated Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) food price index close to pre-crisis level of 2006.

Fill the Cup is a campaign of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), the world's largest humanitarian aid agency. In 2009, WFP plans to feed over 100 million people in 77 of the world's poorest countries. "Fill the Cup" aims to use the symbol of the Red Cup to raise awareness of global hunger, specifically involving hungry school children. About 59 million primary school age children attend school hungry across the developing world, with 23 million of them in 45 African countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">World Hunger Relief</span> Charity campaign

World Hunger Relief is a hunger relief charity campaign run by United States fast-food company Yum! Brands, to raise funds for the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and other hunger relief agencies. The campaign involves the company's restaurant chains worldwide in over 130 countries, including more than 43,000 KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell restaurants and 1.5 million associates.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Epidemiology of malnutrition</span> Overview of global nutritional deficiencies

There were 735.1 million malnourished people in the world in 2022, a decrease of 58.3 million since 2005, despite the fact that the world already produces enough food to feed everyone and could feed more than that.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Two Degrees Food</span> Philanthropic vegan bar company

Two Degrees Food was a one-for-one food company that produced vegan snack bars. One of their main ways to promote their business was using some of their profit to give food to hungry children. Two Degrees Food has provided meals to children in areas including the United States, Kenya, India, Malawi, Somalia, Colombia, and Myanmar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ShareTheMeal</span> Fundraising app of the World Food Programme

ShareTheMeal is a crowdfunding smartphone application to fight global hunger through the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). It enables users to make small donations to specific WFP projects and to track its progress. In 2020, ShareTheMeal was selected as one of the "Best Apps" globally by Apple and Google. As of November 2023, ShareTheMeal has over 200 million meals shared from 1.4 million app users.

Grain From Ukraine is a humanitarian food program that was launched on November 26, 2022, on the 90th anniversary of the beginning of the Holodomor of 1932–1933, by the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to supply grain to the poorest countries in Africa.

References

  1. 1 2 Ceceri, Kathy (2010-03-04). "Free Rice Expands Your Word Power and Feeds the Hungry".
  2. "Feed a child for Thanksgiving". Archived from the original on 2007-11-25.
  3. "Web game provides rice for hungry". BBC News. 2007-11-10.
  4. "400 Grams of Rice". 31 July 2008.
  5. "Total Donations By Date". Archived from the original on 2008-03-26. Retrieved 2008-03-28.
  6. Find of the Year 2007, Category Charity (accessed on February 7, 2008).