An Internet game launched by United Nations World Food Programme six months ago has proved so popular that it has generated enough rice to feed 1.1 million people for a day.
The interactive vocabulary game allows a player 20 grains of rice for each correct answer. The money raised through advertising is used to underwrite rice donations.
Thus it allows children simultaneously to bolster their vocabularies and help feed world's hungry children. With between 3 lakh and 5 lakh people playing it daily, it has generated 21 billion grains of rice for WFP.
The first recipients of the website's aid were refugees from Myanmar taking shelter in Bangladesh. Ugandan school children and pregnant and nursing mothers in Cambodia were among other beneficiaries.
Next batch of rice will be distributed among Bhutanese refugees in Nepal.
"I never imagined that things would move this fast or that it would be such a success," said the game's creator, John Breen, an online fundraising pioneer from the United States.
"Quite apart from the actual amount of rice generated, FreeRice is a fantastic way of spreading the message about world hunger."
A new audio function lets players hear how words are pronounced, and Breen said a team of lexographers is working to expand the database of 10,000 words. To scale up the game's appeal to younger and non-native English speakers, visitors can now select the level of difficulty.
Teachers have voiced their appreciation for a vocabulary game that has the power to draw their students in, WFP said.
"You cannot imagine the joy in my heart when I look out and see 25 kids doing vocabulary homework and enjoying it," one teacher from California told the School Library Journal.
The appeal of the online game to children is such that freerice.com 'communities' have blossomed on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace.
"Wow this is so great! You prepare for English tests and help out others. My total count so far is 6,100 grains," a New York high school student said in a comment on Facebook.
