Online Billion Helping the Hungry Billion

When the number of hungry people in the world passed the one billion mark, the United Nations World Food Programme turned to the people who are online (now topping one billion in number) to each give a little to help to the hungry. They called their pcampaign, Billion for a Billion, and asked people to donate and to spread the word online and elsewhere. The message is simple: If everyone does a little, we can achieve unimaginable results.

Here are some of the things the online billion has achieved so far, as listed on the UN World Food Programme website:

Donations
1. Responded to the earthquake in Haiti with small donations that added up to 12 million meals for children
2. Collectively contributed enough money to feed more than 19 million hungry children in school
3. Donated enough grains of rice through the online quiz game FreeRice to provide meals for 4 million people

Awareness
4. Raised awareness through half a million posts on the web about the billion hungry people
5. Shared key hunger facts with friends and colleagues 35,000 times through Twitter and viewed the ‘Billion for a Billion’ video 500,000 times
6. Spread the ‘Billion for a Billion’ call to action through all social networks, using it as a profile picture or background image on personal pages

Inspiration
7. Created inspirational videos about hunger through the HungerBytes video contest. One of the videos gained over 31,000 views on YouTube.
8. Built a movement of 200 bloggers against hunger who help keep the billion hungry in the public eye at all times.
9. Inspired children such as 8-year-old Aditya from India, who wrote to us that we could use his pocket money to help other hungry children.

For ways in which you can be part of the one billion helpers, click here.