Feed the poor 20 grains at a time

Megha Gupta, The New Paper 17 Apr 08;

AT a time when rice has been grabbing headlines with its sky-rocketing prices, a website called freerice.com has been working overtime to donate the grain to the needy around the world.

And unlike other sites which just ask for donations, this website is gaining popularity by testing the user's vocabulary at the same time.

Visitors to the website are given a multiple-choice vocabulary test, and for every question they get right, 20 grains of rice are donated to the United Nations World Food Programme.

The money is provided by companies advertising on the website, and the UN food programme buys and distributes the rice.

The brainchild of US online fund-raising pioneer John Breen, FreeRice went online in October last year.

As of yesterday, visitors to the site had played their part in ensuring that over 26.5 billion grains of rice will be donated to the poor.

Going by figures from a BBC report, the website has generated enough rice to feed 50,000 people for nearly a month.

The head of the UN World Food Programme Josette Sheeran said in that report: 'FreeRice really hits home how the web can be harnessed to raise awareness and funds for the world's number one emergency.'

She said word of the game has spread with the help of bloggers and websites like Facebook and YouTube.

'The site is a viral marketing success story,' she said.

Student Felicia Goh, 19, found the link to the website on a Facebook group called 'feed a child with a click'.

'The group has these websites that donate food and money to the needy and you just need to click,' she told The New Paper.

However, what got her hooked was the 'innovative' concept of FreeRice.

'I've gone on such websites before. I went on this Breast Cancer awareness website where they provide a free mammogram for every click,' she said.

FRESH CONCEPT

'But at FreeRice you don't just click, you actually do something.'

Felicia has played the game twice so far and has even put the link in one of the entries on her blog.

'Despite the fact that I'm English-educated, a lot of the words are not easy. But it's a good starting point - they can introduce other languages like Chinese and Malay in future,' she said.

Her friend, Lin Yu Ying, 19, accessed the link from her blog and has since played it five times.

'It has a very new and fresh concept,' she said. 'The fact that it's a game makes it even more interesting.'

Rice is a staple food in many parts of the world, including Singapore, and its rising price has become a concern in recent weeks.

'At least in Singapore the situation is not so bad and we can still afford our rice,' said Yu Ying.