Did you know your phone is a gateway to clean water for people around the world?

Add up all those times you click the home button on your iPhone or Android just to check the time, or see if you’ve gotten a text, or check twitter and email. What if each time you didn’t check your phone, a child across the world received clean water for a day, or two days, or three days? You’d definitely give up checking your phone if this was possible right?

Well, get ready to eat your words. BECAUSE IT’S POSSIBLE!

UNICEF has just provided us with the simplest way to give back this March with the UNICEF Tap Project. The Tap Project is so easy, there is no excuse for anyone with a phone to NOT be participating. For every five minutes you go without checking your phone, a day of clean water is provided to children around the world by UNICEF and participating donors.

Here are the steps to participating:

Use your phone to log onto uniceftapproject.org
Type in your first and last name, and email address
Click the prompt to get you to the timer
The site will ask you to set your phone down on a flat surface – once you do this, the timer begins … and so will your self control

The only thing you need to donate to help out is time spent on your phone, literally.

You must keep the website open in order for the timer to run. If you close out, even if you’re not touching your phone, the timer will pause until you open the website back up again. I set it away from me, out of my site so I’m not bothered, but as I glanced over at it just now I noticed that UNICEF flashes different facts about cell phone usage and water statistics. The fact that just popped up on my phone read “44% of Americans say they can’t go without their phone for a day”. We can live without our phones, for 5 minutes at the very least. We cannot live without clean water. Unfortunately, children in other countries face this reality, this lack of clean water, every day.

I understand there may be some skepticism associated with this. How do you know UNICEF is actually going to donate water based on the amount of time you set your phone down? My initial answer would be this: what do you have to lose, regardless? Nothing. People around the world on the other hand, have a lot they could potentially be losing out on. My second answer is this: Check it out for yourself. Click here to link to UNICEF’s national partners and the fine print regarding this campaign.

If you were to write down all the things you truly cannot live without, I guarantee you wouldn’t write down your cell phone. Water would (hopefully) make the list. This is why I challenge you to put down your phone for at least 5 minutes today. Make it a challenge with friends, family and coworkers. I just checked my phone – I’m at 35 minutes for today. That’s one week’s worth of clean water donated to children who really need it, and all I had to do was log onto uniceftapproject.org and set my phone down. LET THE TIMERS BEGIN!

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