It sounds like spam or a cheap joke. As if you spending time clicking and surfing the web can do any good to people who are starving to death! Wouldn't world hunger have ended by now then? I was really skeptical when I first started looking into these sites...I mean, who wouldn't be? It just sounds too good to be true.
According to the United Nations, 25,000 people die every day from hunger related causes, most of them being children. Together, more than 6.5 million children die every year from a lack of food and clean water. Only 75 cents a day would feed one child -- less than it costs for one cup of coffee would provide three meals a day for one child. If you could only save one child, would it not be worth it? Every year $30 billion is raised from ad revenue on internet sites. A small portion of this could help put an end to world hunger.
There has been a proliferation of sites in the last few years devoted to using the money raised from online advertising to help end world hunger. Here's a review of some of the more popular sites, how they work, where the money comes from and where the money goes to. Does this really work? Why can't someone just make a program to just keep clicking the "click here" buttons?
This site donates rice (obviously from the name of it!). It is formatted as a vocabulary building game. Every correct answer earns 20 grains of rice. In countries where rice is a dietary staple, it takes 400 grams of rice to feed one person for one day. Since there are approximately 48 grains of rice per gram, it would take 19,200 grains to feed one person per day. This means that you would have to get 960 vocabulary answers right to feed one person for one day.
This website is associated with the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. This center "envisions a growing opportunity to use Internet technologies to improve the ways that we teach, learn, and make information accessible to citizens around the world.” They have helped set up the website itself as well as the vocabulary tests. They have started branching out into other subjects as well including math, geography, art, and language tests. These tests are set up to make clicking for free rice challenging and rewarding for the users as well as the receivers of the rice.
This website is also associated with the United Nations World Food Program to help procure and distribute the rice donations. They have donated rice to Uganda, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Cambodia and many other places.
This site donates water -- or actually it donates the money necessary to buy the equivalent amount of water earned. It is formatted as a number memorizing game. Every correct answer earns one cup of water. Memorizing numbers is said to help with short term memory and keeps your brain active. People are supposed to drink 8 cups of water each day. This does not include the amount of water necessary for bathing, washing clothes or dishes. This means you would have to get at least approximately 8 memorization numbers right to provide enough water for one person for one day to drink.
This website is associated with World Vision. The website gives the equivalent monetary amount to the water users have earned to World Vision. They, in turn, procure and distribute the water to countries in need.
The website itself does not have a list of countries they have helped supplied water to. However, World Vision works in many, many countries -- nearly 100 different countries in total. Their website outlines their work in Africa, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and the Americas.
This site donates water or the equivalent monies to buy the water earned by users. It is formatted as a geography game. You can earn between zero and ten cups of water depending on how close your answer is to the location asked. For example, they'll ask where Kabul, Afghanistan is. You'll have ten seconds to click on your guess on the world map. The closer you get to the right location, the more water you'll "earn". It goes through an easy, medium and hard level with five chances to get it completely wrong. If you get the location exactly right, you earn 10 cups of water which would be enough for one person in one day to drink.
This website has recently lost theif affiliation with a distributer and is currently looking for a new one.
