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Entertainment Headline: Click to Stop World HungerPublished: Sat, 01 May 2010 09:06:00 -0400 In the next sixty seconds ten children will die of hunger and hunger-caused diseases. For the first time ever this year the number of hungry people in our little world will exceed a billion. Using an online counter, I found that in the time I listened to one song (about 4:05 minutes long) over fifty children died of hunger. And this is only one of the major world issues that goes unnoticed. These are sobering thoughts, and if we're quite honest they are depressing too. But this article isn't meant to be a tear-jerker. This is reality, and there is something you can do to help.
In the next sixty seconds 83,273 people will log onto Facebook. In the next sixty seconds $43, 681 will be spent on Ebay. For the first time ever the number of people using the internet will exceed a billion. The United Nations World Food Program noted these statistics, and they also noted that the numbers aren't just coincidental. It's time for the online billion to help the hungry billion. But let's not restrain ourselves to only care about the hungry. Let's get the online billion to help the victims of trafficking, the homeless, the unemployed, the helplessly disabled.
Some Examples of What's Being Done Already
The Hunger Site is an online store where each item you buy funds cups of food for the hungry. Not only this, but THS partners with GreaterGood.org and other organizations to sell items made by needy women all over the world seeking to support themselves post-abuse or poverty and help others in their area. An example would be their Organic Bohemian Tiered Skirt which is produced in the Tamil Nadu region of India by a cooperative of Franciscan nuns. The sale of these helps them employ and care for 120 women who are either handicapped or economically disadvantaged; it also supports 300 local farmers who supply the nuns with cotton. Also, with each purchase, THS gives 25 cups of food to the hungry. Another example would be their Sacred Marked Soap (25 cups of food per packet), which comes from the red-light district of Bangladesh and is made by women who have chosen soap making as an alternative source of income. Yet another example would be their Handmade Afghan Teddy Bears, which are created by a non-profit school in Kabul, Afghanistan that teaches vocational skills, such as sewing and embroidery, alongside standard academic subjects. Not only does each purchase of a teddy bear fund 50 cups of food for the hungry, but also allows for the donation of a bear to a child in a school or hospital in Afghanistan. www.thehungersite.com
Free Rice is a website with a game that both educates and feeds the hungry. With six different subject categories, people of all types can learn and enjoy giving with Free Rice. Artistic philanthropists could test their knowledge in the art category; matching the displayed painting with its correct artist donates ten grains of rice! Mathematicians wanting to hone their pre-algebra skills can do their daily two thousand in the math category. For each correct answer in every category, ten grains of rice are donated to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). Sponsors pay for the donated rice, and then the WFP distributes it where the need is greatest. This online means of helping world hunger is particularly well-thought-out because it requires neither money nor credit cards. Free Rice attracts players because the game is both instructional and fun, and attracts donors because it supports two good causes: education and elimination of world hunger. Ten grains of rice may sound like a small amount, but it adds up fast! (Look at AidtoChildren.com for a similar website in league with World Vision instead.)
Fill the Cup is a branch of the UN World Food Programme (WFP) particularly dealing with school meals. To fill one red cup (their symbol) with food for a hungry school child costs only 25 cents. $1.50 would fund a week's worth of school meals for one child. According to their informational documents, Fill the Cup “now provides meals to more than 20 million children in school, about half of whom are girls, in some 70 countries.” Paying for a child's school meal means not only fueling their brains to learn better, but also giving their parents an incentive to send their children to school at all, particularly girls whose portions include a monthly take-home ration. https://www.wfp.org/donate/fillthecup
TOMS shoes has a mission to provide shoes and spread awareness for the tens of thousands of children who go shoeless every day. Why shoes? Because “[soil-transmitted diseases] can penetrate the skin through bare feet. . . . Wearing shoes also prevents feet from getting cuts and sores, [ . . . which could then] become infected. . . . Many times children can't attend school barefoot because shoes are [a] required part of their uniform. . . . If they don't receive an education, they don't have the opportunity to realize their potential.” For every pair of TOMS purchased, one pair of shoes is given to a shoeless child.
What You Can Do
What can you do to be involved? Of course, donations are essential. Donations can be anything from 25 cents to 2,500 dollars. Just $10 could pay for tents in Haiti. Just one dollar could fill 4 cups with food. Every little bit counts. See the links at the end of this article to donate.
But donations aren't everything! Spend a little extra and get some of your clothes, gifts, or toiletries at the Hunger Site and sponsor good causes as well as bring food to the hungry! Buy some TOMS and inform others about shoeless children.
If all you have to give is time, that's valuable too! Give ten minutes of your time to Free Rice or Aid to Children. Take a Saturday afternoon to sign petitions and tell your friends. Have a barefoot day and spread awareness about TOMS. Paint a few old T-Shirts with informational messages, wear them to Wal-Mart, and use them to start conversations. Take time every day to click the Hunger Site and donate 1.1 cups of food. Use your blog, mahara page, Facebook, or email signature to sport banners for Free Rice or WFP. But most of all? Pray. Tell your friends to pray. We live in a fallen world, and no amount of money can change that. Physical food will not be enough to save the souls of the hungry billion. Yes, physical food is essential; we want to give everyone the most possible chances to know about Jesus. But it is not enough. As often as you spend ten minutes donating rice to Free Rice, take ten minutes to pray for the souls of the people who will benefit.
Together we can do great things. Let's get the online billion started in helping the helpless billions.
Techy Tip - Morning Coffee Add-on for Firefox: Use this add-on to remind you every morning to take twenty minutes and donate twenty-five cents to Aid to Children and a few thousand grains to Free Rice. Don't forget to add The Hunger Site to the list and click once a day! (: This nifty gadget fits in the top bar of your firefox with a cute symbol of coffee. After setting up the sites you'd like for it to open, whenever you click on it (preferably in the morning) it will open those sites in the tabs for you. Add whatever you normally would open consecutively in the morning (Facebook, Mahara, iGoogle, Gmail, etc). It saves you the clicking and the remembering.
Links: http://www.fao.org/getinvolved/telefood/en/ http://www.1billionhungry.org/ http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/stop-world-hunger.html https://shop.thehungersite.com/store/categoryjson.do?siteId=220&categoryId=332&adId=13313&placementId=119023&origin=ctg_ths_takeaction_from_thankyou_maincolumn&sort=Most%20Popular#220,2824,1,true,Most Popular
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