The Rice Bucket Challenge is a response to the

Ice Bucket Challenge The Ice Bucket Challenge, sometimes called the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, is an activity involving the pouring of a bucket of ice water over a person's head, either by another person or self-administered, to promote awareness of the disease amyo ...

that started in

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

and spread to other South Asian nations. Whereas the original Ice Bucket Challenge involved participants pouring a bucket of ice over their heads and/or donating to the

ALS Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as motor neuron disease (MND) or Lou Gehrig's disease, is a neurodegenerative disease that results in the progressive loss of motor neurons that control voluntary muscles. ALS is the most comm ...

research, the Rice Bucket Challenge involves donating a bucket of rice to a poor person or family. __TOC__

Significance

As an alternative to the Ice Bucket Challenge, the Rice Bucket Challenge served the dual purpose of highlighting

water scarcity Water scarcity (closely related to water stress or water crisis) is the lack of fresh water resources to meet the standard water demand. There are two types of water scarcity: physical or economic water scarcity. Physical water scarcity is whe ...

(in that the use of ice was considered expensive and wasteful) and poverty (in that a bucket of rice was considered a valuable donation by recipients).

History

The idea for the Rice Bucket Challenge is attributed to

Manju Latha Kalanidhi Manju Latha Kalanidhi is an Indian journalist, feature writer, columnist and creator of Rice Bucket Challenge. She is currently the City Editor at The New Indian Express in Hyderabad. Early life Manju Latha Kalanidhi, studied in St. Ann's S ...

, a 38-year-old journalist based in

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part ...

. She considered the Ice Bucket Challenge artificial and wasteful of water, and came up with the Rice Bucket Challenge as a less-wasteful alternative that would help local communities. It started off as a

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin ...

page on August 23, 2014, and within a day, the page had 7000 likes. On August 24, 2014, the

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

hashtag A hashtag is a metadata tag that is prefaced by the hash (also known as pound or octothorpe) sign, ''#''. On social media, hashtags are used on microblogging and photo-sharing services such as Twitter or Instagram as a form of user-generated ...

#ricebucketchallenge was first used, and within a month, the hashtag had been tweeted 11,000 times. On August 25, the Rice Bucket Challenge was covered in

BuzzFeed BuzzFeed, Inc. is an American Internet media, news and entertainment company with a focus on digital media. Based in New York City, BuzzFeed was founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti and John S. Johnson III to focus on tracking viral content. ...

and ''

Quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica ( silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical ...

'', and within a few days, it had received coverage in the '' Huffington Post'', ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television a ...

'',

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by the ...

CNBC CNBC (formerly Consumer News and Business Channel) is an American basic cable business news channel. It provides business news programming on weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Eastern Time, while broadcasting talk sh ...

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

NDTV New Delhi Television Ltd is an Indian news media company focusing on broadcast and digital news publication. The company is considered to be a legacy brand that pioneered independent news broadcasting in India, and is credited for launching ...

, ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, t ...

'', and many other news websites. The Rice Bucket Challenge spread to other South Asian nations, including

Nepal Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is ma ...

and

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

. Ingress Philippines attempted to start the challenge in the Philippines on Google+ private post It was forwarded to other social network sites on September 3, 2014 as a public post and accepted by Ingress Enlightened Philippines community on the same day. A version of this challenge not related to it was led by businessman Dr. Henry Lim Bon Liong in

Manila Manila ( , ; fil, Maynila, ), officially the City of Manila ( fil, Lungsod ng Maynila, ), is the capital city, capital of the Philippines, and its second-most populous city. It is Cities of the Philippines#Independent cities, highly urbanize ...

in the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

on September 12, 2014 that attracted media attention in the Philippines.

References

2010s fads and trends Projects established in 2014 Challenges Health-related fundraisers Internet memes introduced in 2014 Viral videos Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis 2014 establishments in India Charity events Internet memes introduced from India {{Challenges