1. How does FreeRice work?
Companies/individuals make direct donations to WFP and, in return, FreeRice creator John Breen places their advertising banners on the site, at the bottom of the page of each vocabulary question. Donors pay a certain price for a certain number of clicks. Obviously, if there is a lot of traffic it means their banner will be visible for less time over all.
2. What was the inspiration for this program?
Site creator John Breen is an impassioned individual committed to the cause of ending hunger around the world. He originally developed FreeRice to encourage his 13 and 15 year-old children to do their vocabulary homework. FreeRice raised just 850 grains on its launch date (Oct 7, 2007), equivalent to about 10 players. Within three days, over 1,000 people were playing the game. The rest is Internet history. Breen continues to emphasize schools support for FreeRice, citing teachers who claim their pupils are missing recess/breaks so they can keep playing the game.
3. How successful has this program been so far?
The daily numbers of donated grains on the site speak for themselves. John says between 300,000 and 500,000 people play it every day. John recently won a prize for the site see - http://www.berkmanat10.org.
4. Will there be any further developments?
Not at the present time.
5. How else can today's youth help?
If we are to win the fight against hunger, then it's essential for today's youth to be aware of this problem, which affects over 850 million people around the world. So the first thing that young people can do to help WFP is to learn more about global hunger - for example by playing Food Force, WFP's educational video game. This is a free computer game which is available for download in 14 languages at www.food-force.com. The player joins a WFP emergency response team, following the step-by-step process of bringing food to the hungry poor in the wake of a natural disaster. The website also features a wealth of resources for teachers and students, including lesson plans and fundraising ideas.
|
