15 January 2013
Dawn Of A New Day
It is day two of the post-Apocalyptathonic era. Against all odds, the world survived the Apocalyptathon – but not without serious devastation. Millions of children in developing countries are without proper education, unable to help themselves out of poverty.
Luckily, Free The Children is here to help – and you guys have all shown you are right behind them. You donated $6,715 to Free The Children over the weekend, and it will go a long way towards building a schoolhouse in a place which we'll let you decide.
Before we get to that, though – more than ever, we can't thank you enough for your support during the marathon! Especially with our poor marathon scheduling which resulted in us being slightly overshadowed by Awesome Games Done Quick, you guys stuck with us and made the marathon a success. Seriously, you're awesome!
A huge thanks to Twitch.tv, Mashable, and all the other sites that helped us with exposure during the marathon.
72 hours
It certainly was an interesting 72 hours. The apocalypse almost happened early when tech issues plagued the beginning of the Apocalyptathon. We were hopelessly dropping frames for a while, and then our trusty viewers worked out a way to break the polls before we eventually got things smoothed out. Toby's "moderately hasteful" Majora's Mask run demonstrated why you shouldn't try to glitch through the first half of a game and then complete the second half legitimately.
George's creation of the GameToAid rap and the new money polls feature stimuated the high point of the marathon – over $1,000 of donations within an hour. We went through a hat craze, finally made Tim pay, received a bunch of awesome fan art, and raffled off a brand-new Nintendo Wii U. Congratulations to the winner, Ben Baker!
Where should we build that schoolhouse?
But enough reminiscing – let's get back down to business. Despite not reaching our initial $8,500 goal to completely fund a schoolhouse project, the money we raised will still go a long way towards one! Since you guys are the ones who donated, we're going to let you vote on where you'd like to send the funds. Below is some information about the countries in which Free The Children work:
Kenya
- The average literacy rate in Kenya is 85.1%.
- 26% of children ages 5 to 14 are involved in child labor.
- 50% of the population lives below the poverty line with an average annual income of $1,700.
India
- 34% of India’s population lives on less than $1 a day.
- Only 50% of secondary school-aged girls and 63% of boys in India are enrolled in secondary school.
- Children under 14 constitute around 3.6% of the total labor force in India.
Sierra Leone
- 70% of Sierra Leone’s population lives below the poverty line.
- Less than half of Sierra Leonean women aged 15 to 24 can read and write.
- 48% of Sierra Leone’s children aged 5 to 14 are involved in child labor.
Haiti
- Half of Haiti’s residents live on less than $1 US a day.
- Following the 2010 earthquake, 3 million people were affected as buildings, homes and hospitals collapsed.
- The average literacy rate among the population is 52.9%.
Ecuador
- Almost 40% of Ecuadorians live below the poverty line.
- There are approximately 400,000 child laborers in Ecuador.
- 67% of Ecuadorian children finish elementary school.
Rural China
- About 150 million people in China live on less than $1 a day.
- China is home to 18% of the world’s poor.
- 17.7% of students schooled in rural China are able to attend a university.
Nicaragua
- 50,000 children of primary school level do not attend school.
- The average number of years Nicaraguan children spend in school is just 4.6.
- Three-quarters of the Nicaraguan population live on less than $2 a day.
Ghana
- 53% of the population lives on less than $2 a day.
- Ghana’s national literacy rate is only 67%.
- 37% of children in Ghana are engaged in child labour.
Vote in the poll below! There are no right or wrong answers – every option is a good choice. Feel free to discuss your decision in the comments.
Voting is closed on this poll.