Over the last couple of months it’s been impossible to ignore the Ice Bucket Challenge. Everyone from Bill Gates to Victoria Beckham has accepted the challenge, raising an impressive $98.2 million (£60.7 million) for the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) foundation.
Social media has been flooded with videos of people taking part in the challenge, screaming, kicking, and shouting their way through the endeavor all for a good cause.
But whilst individuals were pouring buckets of ice-cold water over their heads, 38-year-old Indian journalist Manju Latha Kalanidhi, from Hyderabad, was devising a new challenge. This challenge would focus instead on an issue closer to home – hunger.
Concerned with saving water and addressing more local issues, Manju’s challenge is aimed at convincing individuals to donate rice to poor and starving individuals. Participants taking the challenge are then asked to post a picture of them completing the challenge to their social media. It has been dubbed the Rice Bucket Challenge.
She argues:
“The ALS challenge is a great challenge for a great cause. But when several in India adopted only the fun part of the ice challenge and forgot about the cause, I felt sad and decided to tweak it so that there is no wastage of water, no mess of freezing ice, and you can do something practical which can help a hungry person.
“Hunger is the number one problem in India. I have several times felt very moved when I saw destitute picking up food from garbage trucks and railway tracks. I felt the rice bucket challenge could do a bit for the all-pervasive problem of hunger in India.”
Although, India has the third largest economy in the world by GDP, it also still has a huge issue with the level of hunger within the country. Compared to other nations, India ranked 63 in the Global Hunger Index, behind other emerging countries such as Pakistan and Bangladesh.
The level of hunger has been described as being at ‘alarming levels’, with the percentage of children under five who are underweight being at above 40%. 1/4 of the world’s hungry live in India alone, and whilst conditions are improving, progress is slow.
In her capacity as a journalist, Manju is no stranger to the issue of hunger. For the last 17 years, she has been a freelance writer in Hyderabad, covering stories on malnutrition and poverty.
She is also a senior editor of a rice news, analysis and research site, called oryza.com. This, she believes, helped her to come up with the idea, which has now spread to other countries, such as the Phillipines, Dubai, Ghana, Indonesia and the US.
On 21 August, she posted the picture of her first donation, in which she gifted 22kg (roughly Rs 800 worth) of rice to people in need. 24 hours later this picture had garnered 1000 likes and close to 20 separates donations. Since then, this has increased significantly, with the Facebook group alone having gathered 65,000 likes on its page, as of October 6th.
She estimates that at least 50,000kg of rice has now been donated globally, though this amount is increasing all the time. In addition, several celebrities have also endorsed the appeal, including directors Karan Johar and Mahesh Bhatt, as well as Bangladeshi cricketer Shakib Al Hasan.
In response to its success, she comments: “I expected 40 likes and three shares! If I had an inkling of how popular it would become, I would have put on a better outfit for the first donation. I am overwhelmed with the response. I feel positive that all is not lost yet and there are thousands of people who are ready to join in a good cause.”
Asked whether she believes it will help raise the issue of hunger in India, she comments:
“When the common man joins in the rice bucket challenge, I am sure the need to erase the inequalities becomes much more louder.”
The Ice Bucket Challenge has shown signs of slowing down, but Manju insists that its Indian equivalent has yet to see a drop off in interest as of yet.
“We started it on Aug 22 and today, more and more are joining – colleges, campuses, corporates, firms. I think the Rice Bucket Challenge has reached a point of no return. It’s going to be just growth now!
“You only need to see the Facebook group to see the kind of response the challenge is getting. I believe that the numbers, the shares, likes and donations speak for themselves.”
More information on the Rice Bucket Challenge can be found at Facebook.com/RiceBucketChallenge
