By Patrick Morey, News Correspondent
Phones these days can be used to snap selfies and post them to Instagram, surf the Internet and even watch the latest episodes of Game of Thrones – the possibilities are endless. Now, it is also possible for anyone to improve the lives of children around the world by ignoring all of those possibilities, and instead simply doing nothing.
With the UNICEF Tap Project’s most recent initiative, helping provide clean water to children and families in underdeveloped countries around the world can be as easy as turning off a phone. The organization worked in conjunction with companies around the world during the month of March to provide 20 million days worth of water to those in need.
“UNICEF Tap Project is working to help the 768 million people around the world without access to clean water,” states the UNICEF Tap Project’s website. “This year you can help by taking a challenge to give up access to something far less vital than water – your cell phone.”
Being a part of this program is quite simple. One only needs to log on to uniceftapproject.org on their smartphone, begin the challenge, and leave their phone idle. For every 10 minutes the phone remains untouched, Giorgio Armani Fragrances and UNICEF’s Next Generation provide enough funds to give a child clean water for a day.
Just to give an idea to smartphone users of how their time could be better spent, the program’s website lists daily figures of relatively trivial activities that would consume the same amount of time that could be spent donating to the UNICEF Tap Project. Instead of posting over 3.1 billion Facebook pictures, or viewing 9 million selfies and 781,000 cat pictures on Instagram, participants chose to do nothing and drastically enhance the quality of life for millions of children.
Northeastern senior pharmacy major Shahista Kassam said that after learning more about the program, it is something she would consider doing.
“Realistically I would leave it going overnight while I was sleeping, but I would try [doing it during the day],” Kassam said. “Ten minutes isn’t too much of a commitment to help a child.”
Kassam also brought up one of the minor concerns of using the app, regarding its use of data and battery life.
“If it used too much data it might stop me from using it,” she said. “Some apps like Pandora drain your data and battery, so as long as it’s not that bad I could definitely do it.”
Anthony DeMayo, a freshman civil engineering major, acknowledged that this use of data and battery life may be a problem, but suggested that participating overnight with access to Wi-Fi and a charger may be a solution. Even if those two aids were not available, DeMayo said he believes the loss of data and battery is a small price to pay for the benefits of the program.
“It’s worth the data to donate and help kids around the world,” DeMayo said.
Third year psychology major Freydjine Gelin echoed Kassam’s idea of leaving the app running overnight, but added that she would be willing to do it during the day as well.
“I think I could go 10 minutes without making a call or texting someone even though it’s hard to ignore your phone,” Gelin said.
Gelin mentioned one of the obstacles participants face when using the app – if the user leaves the program to answer a call, the counter resets to zero. Though setting the phone aside for a period of time sounds easy at first, the temptations to pick it up will always be there.
Throughout March, which happened to be World Water Month, people who partook in the program collectively went over 200 million minutes without using their phones, according to UNICEF’s website. On any given day, participants and their philanthropic backers provided over three years of clean water for children all over the world. It was truly a worldwide effort, as California earned the title of the top time donating state, yet, the highest time donating city was Seoul, South Korea.
Though the Tap Project’s main goal is to provide clean water to those in desperate need of it, their website also lists many other missions that UNICEF embarks upon. Notably, they have given water treatment products, portable toilets and hygiene and water kits to hundreds of thousands of people in the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan.
Even though time donations ended on March 31 for the time being, people can still go without their phones to raise awareness for the program and show their support. If someone wants to make a more substantial difference, UNICEF always accepts donations. According to the UNICEF Tap Project website, a $5 donation results in 200 days of clean water for a child.
