What Does It Take To End Global Hunger?
New app lets you easily donate meals to children in need for 40 cents!
There are nowadays so many new start-ups, some are really great, some are pretty useless, some guys think, they can make easy money while asleep ….. but this fantastic non-profit-start-up SHARE THE MEAL APP idea is the BEST I have ever come across. I knew, when I heard about this fantastic idea, set off by two German guys, I had to spread the word.
There are in the world twenty times more smartphone users than malnourished children. It is from this observation that a Berlin UN team has designed the app. The principle is just a simple – “push” on one’s smartphone to enable the United Nations to feed a child for one day. Each donation of 40 cents goes directly to the World Food Program.
The app, launched in July in German-speaking countries, has already 120,000 users. It allowed serving 1.8 million meals in four months. For now, the funds collected are paid to the World Food Program and they have benefited the children of Lesotho, one of the poorest countries in Africa. Besides, « Share the meal » also intends to take advantage of the migration crisis in Europe to raise awareness. The World Food Program plans to use donations to help Syrian children.
Stricker said the current campaign for Syrian refugee children focuses on school meals because that has proven effective in breaking the cycle of hunger. It also helps increase access to education. The campaign also raises awareness in the developing world, showing that 50 cents can make a huge impact on a child’s life.
The ShareTheMeal app was developed by Sebastian Stricker and Bernhard Kowatsch in April 2014 as part of the WFP Innovation Accelerator, which looks at various ideas, projects and initiatives that can accelerate progress toward reducing hunger. They conducted a successful test launch for the app in June 2015, with more than 120,000 users in Germany, Austria and Switzerland providing more than 1.7 million meals for Lesotho schoolchildren in need.
“We are making progress on reducing global hunger,” Stricker told Mashable…“if we want to achieve the goal of zero hunger by 2030, we feel we have to do something new”
That’s why they turned to smartphones – around the world, smartphone users outnumber hungry children by 20 to 1, according to the WFP. But it was important to keep the app as simple to use as possible, Stricker said. Users will open the app to find a streamlined map with the current campaign country, and a big donation button front and center.
Postface: I am not promoting or earning anything in writing about this! This project is so worth spreading and promoting globally – it takes only very few pennies to help so many children in need. Right on the first day of the New year, thinking about all the money blown up in the air by fireworks last night all around the world – how easy is it to do something really good to make this world a better place!