Two days ago, I caught sight of a commercial by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). I hadn’t seen it before, but now I’m seeing it every day. UNICEF has started the Tap Project, which involves iPhone users (aka perhaps privileged persons) to donate water by not using their phones for 10 minutes. Every 10 minutes becomes 1 day of clean water (provided by the project’s kind sponsors and donors).

uniceftapproject.org:

I totally loved the idea and it’s definitely something within my reach. It’s also a shame I can’t give up actual money—bills and bus fares, and future tuition to pay for. Growing up, those little green pieces of paper began to impact the way my world rotated, and I’m still waiting for money to lose its 15 minutes of fame.

Not going without my phone (not necessary the worst thing ever) reminded me of another project I had heard about when I was younger. It’s FreeRice, a knowledge game where every question answered correctly grants 10 grains of rice to the World Food Programme.

My favorite part is that the website automatically opens to English Vocabulary (though there are other subjects). When I was in Massachusetts, I had a friend I teased, perhaps because he seemed so near to perfect. He was a FreeRice user. But, FreeRice has existed since 2007; it was as a student in middle school that I first started using the website.

Now I’ve introduced it to my little brother, who has made the ambitious statement of reaching 10,000 grains. He’s got less than 8,000 to go. Not a bad start.