The goal: Bringing clean, safe water to children around the world.
The vehicle: Your cell phone. As long as you don’t touch it — gulp — for five whole minutes.
The UNICEF Tap Project is challenging Americans to stop texting, calling, emailing, tweeting and posting — and challenging their friends to do the same — as part of a unique fundraising project. For every five minutes you painfully untether yourself from your mobile device, Giorgio Armani Fragrances and S'well will provide the funding equivalent of one day of clean water for a child.
Think of it as sort of like taking the phenomenally popular Ice Bucket Challenge . . . Only instead of getting freezing liquid dumped on your head, you're having to delay posting your latest goofy selfie for awhile.
But it’s worth the sacrifice. Right now, UNICEF is working in more than 100 countries around the world to improve access to safe water and sanitation facilities in schools and communities and to promote safe hygiene practices. The TAP Project helps drive home the importance of these efforts — and maybe also the level of your, uh, dependence — by offering up informational nuggets for you to read as you stare, plaintively, at the screen of your off-limits phone:
Every day, 55 million posts are made to Facebook, for example, is followed by:
Every day, girls are kept out of school to fetch water
Meanwhile look on the bright side: Yes, the longer you go without touching your phone, the more money you raise; but it’s also a built-in excuse not to have to take calls from your mother or texts from your boss!
To take part, log onto tap.unicefusa.org on your phone and follow the prompts.
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