by Eva Dameron
Daily Lobo
Solving the world's hunger problem may be overwhelming, but there's an easy way to help.
John Breen, who runs Poverty.com, launched a Web site on Oct. 7 called FreeRice.com that helps people improve their vocabulary while donating rice. Site users have to match up the definition to words such as "petulant," "inculpate" and "prurience."
"If you get it right, you get a harder word," Breen said. "If you get it wrong, you get an easier word. And there are 50 levels of words. I spent about 5 months putting them in. They get really hard in the harder levels."
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For every word the user gets right, the Web site donates 10 grains of rice to the World Food Program. The WFP then distributes the rice to countries in need.
Breen said that since the site started, more than 2.5 billion grains of rice have been donated to about 75 countries.
"We're doing over 150 million (grains) a day," Breen said. "All the people playing and all the rice being donated shows people all around the world really want to end hunger."
Jennifer Mizgata, public affairs representative for the WFP, said the organization receives cash donations from FreeRice.com once a month, paid for by the site's advertisers. WFP uses that money to buy the rice.
According to the United Nations, 25,000 people die each day from hunger-related causes.
"We try to purchase the rice in the country where people live so it reduces the time it takes to get the food to the country," Mizgata said. "And it also stimulates the local economy. We work in emergency situations or in places with significant need."
Jordan Dey, director for the U.S. WFP, said hunger is the greatest health problem in the world, and more than 850 million people go to bed hungry every night.
"(The rice) is delivered in 110-pound sacks, and depending on the size of the family, that will be a ration for a month," Dey said. "It's a basket of food, so it would be rice and lentil or beans with some vegetable oil. We complement it with other food, other commodities."
He said women and children are most affected by hunger.
"We're particularly concerned about hunger for children because they're in a physical and mental development stage," Dey said. "Also, women who are pregnant or who are lactating - it's important that they're well-nourished to end the cycle of low birth weight babies. If a malnourished mother gives birth to a malnourished child, the cycle starts all over again."
Breen said education is important to help poor countries escape poverty. He said this helped him come up with the idea to combine education with the hunger problem for his Web site. He said his favorite hunger-fighting method is called the School Feeding Program, run by the WFP.
"In the Third World, a lot of people don't want their kids going to school - they want them to work," he said. "If you come to school, we'll give you food to eat while you're at school, and we'll give you food to bring home to your families. Then the next generation will be educated, and we'll get out of poverty. We'll end hunger before you know it."
