Think it would be tough to go for 10 minutes without checking your smartphone? It might be easier if you know that unplugging would help a child in need.
UNICEF’s latest fundraising effort is offering smartphone users a big incentive to unplug from their devices -- for every 10 minutes a participant goes without touching their phone, The Tap Project will fund a day’s worth of clean water for a child in need.
“We just wanted to connect two very simple dots, things that are very important and essential that we take for granted and the reality of so many millions of people and millions of kids who don’t have even the most basic things,” UNICEF Vice President Rajesh Anandan told HuffPost Live host Caroline Modarressy-Tehrani.
More than 760 million people around the world go every day without access to safe drinking water, and 1,400 children die daily from diseases caused by this scarcity, according to UNICEF.
Soon after the Tap Project launched earlier this week, Huffington Post Senior Editor Carina Kolodny joined the initiative, and found the process of unplugging to be more difficult than she anticipated.
“I didn’t realize how much through the course of a day I reach for [my phone] or check it,” she said. “It’s almost like this unconscious tick that we’re constantly in touch with technology.”
Learn more about UNICEF’s Tap Project by watching the HuffPost Live video clip above.