Help Those In Need By Ignoring Your iPhone

If there's an easier way to donate to a better cause, we've never heard of it. The newest initiative from the UNICEF Tap Project donates a day's worth of clean water for every minute you don't touch your phone. Sponsors will donate a dollar for every minute you hold back, meaning one day's worth of clean water for a child that needs it ."Tap Project," geddit? Clean water taps, tapping your iPhone... We see what you did there, UNICEF.

Let's face it, you'll feel better for every minute you spend away from the clutches of your iPhone, and now you can fundraise while doing exactly that. It's as easy as it sounds: Go to UnicefTapProject.org on your smartphone, hit "Begin," and your phone will start to clock how long it sits there, untouched. For every minute you don't touch it, a day's worth of clean water is donated to a needy child.

According to UNICEF, there are 768 million people across the globe who don't have access to clean water. And by asking you to abandon your phone, UNICEF hopes to remind everybody that the hardship of not being able to grab your phone when it's beeping with notifications doesn't begin to compare with not having basic access to amenities like clean water.

A bit of background on the UNICEF Tap Project, which has been around since 2007 and is a lot more than a smartphone initiative (clever and pun-ny as that may be.) Every day, more than 4,000 children across the world die from water-related diseases, and the America-based UNICEF Tap Project raises funds for clean water for developing and needy countries. It works towards Goal 7 of UNICEF's Millennium Development Goals: Goal 7 is to halve the number of people without access to safe drinking water by 2015.

Image: UNICEF