WFP News Relase

WFP News Release

1 February 2012

WFP LAUNCHES WORLD FREERICE WEEK TO FIGHT HUNGER THROUGH THE POWER OF SOCIAL MEDIA

ROME – The theory of “Six Degrees of Separation” says that every person in the world is connected to every other person in the world through, at most, six other people. Through its online hunger-fighting game Freerice.com, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) is encouraging Freerice players to use these connections to bring food to the world’s most vulnerable populations.

WFP will launch World Freerice Week from 6-11 February with the theme of “6 Degrees of Freerice.” WFP is calling on Freerice fans to recruit six friends to join in the online fight against hunger. By playing the trivia games at Freerice.com during World Freerice Week, players can win prizes and have fun while feeding the hungry.

“Each of us is only six degrees away, or less, from someone who does not know where she will find her next meal,” said Nancy Roman, WFP Director of Communications, Public Policy and Private Partnerships. “Imagine what we could achieve if we each invite six of our friends to help us donate rice to hungry kids. Freerice allows everyone to make a real-world impact with just the click of a mouse.”

Freerice is not your average online trivia game. With each correct answer, ten grains of rice are donated to WFP to feed hungry people around the world, paid for by sponsored banners on the site. Players can choose from 45,000 questions in a range of subjects, including flags of the world, chemistry and literature, and in six languages.

Freerice currently has over one million registered players, who together have donated nearly 100 billion grains of rice to feed almost five million people since the game’s launch in 2007.

During World Freerice Week, players can create groups on Freerice.com that include “Freerice6” in the group title. Group founders can ask their friends to join and to each invite an additional six friends. Prizes will be given to the group founders who have the most people in their group or whose group has donated the most rice, as well as to the individual who has donated the most rice during the week.

“We can solve the problem of hunger if we join together to each do our part,” said Roman. “Almost one billion people go to bed hungry every night. With 6 Degrees of Freerice, we’re on our way to harnessing the power of online networks to make a difference in the fight against hunger.”

Follow World Freerice Week on Twitter at @freerice and by using the hash tag #Freerice6.

Visit the World Freerice Week homepage here: http://freerice.com/freerice6

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WFP is the world's largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide.  Each year, on average, WFP feeds more than 90 million people in more than 70 countries.

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For more information please contact (email address: firstname.lastname@wfp.org):

Pierre Guillaume Wielezynski, WFP/Rome, Tel. +39 06 6513 2108, Mob. +39 340 246 4913

Emilia Casella, WFP/Rome, Tel. +39 06 6513 3854, Mob. +39 347 9450634

Caroline Hurford, WFP/London, Tel.  +44 20 72409001, Mob.  +44 7968 008474

Bettina Luescher, WFP/New York, Tel. +1 646 5566909, Mob. +1 646 8241112

Rene McGuffin, WFP/Washington, Tel. +1 202 6530010 ext. 1149, Mob. +1 202 4223383