ALS ICEBUCKET CHALLENGE- WHAT IS IT REALLY?

If you've logged onto Facebook, Twitter or Instagram in the previous few weeks, chances are your news-feeds have been flooded with videos of people dumping buckets of ice water on their heads with the hash tag of #ALSICEBUCKETCHALLENGE.

Your favourite stars and your friends aren't doing this to cool down from hot summer temperatures.

The challenge is a viral movement called the “Ice Bucket Challenge” designed to raise awareness for Amyotrophic la

teral sclerosis.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS),is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord leading to muscle weakness, loss of the use of arms and legs and difficulty speaking, breathing and swallowing. The progressive degeneration of the motor neurons in ALS disease eventually leads to the patient’s death.

The challenge started gaining momentum when former Boston College baseball player Pete Frates, who was diagnosed with the disease in 2012, posted a video. Frates, who can no longer speak, posted his own ice bucket video to the tune of Vanilla Ice’s “Ice, Ice Baby” and dared a few people to try it. A social media fire-storm ensued that it is extended well beyond the gates of Boston College.

The challenge requires the participants to record a video of them performing the challenge and upload it on a social media platform within 24 hours of being challenged.  First, they are to announce their acceptance of the challenge followed by pouring ice into a bucket of water and pouring the ice water on their heads. Then the participant can nominate a minimum of three other people to participate in the challenge.

According to The New York Times people shared more than 1.2 million videos on Facebook between June 1 and August 13 and mentioned the phenomenon more than 2.2 million times on Twitter between July 29 and August 17.

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge Has Raised $100 Million – and counting, a shining example of how much coming together of this human race and power of social media, can do.

Everyone from Bill Gates to Tom Cruise has participated in the challenge and many of the celebs making their own versions of it like the famous (or infamous) Charlie Sheen.

Close to home, actors like Sonakshi Sinha, Sidharth Malhotra and Akshay Kumar took up the challenge and nominated their friends, from the Bollywood clan and outside as well, to take up the challenge.

ALS Ice Bucket Challenge has done something marvellous for the mankind. While the monetary donations are absolutely incredible, the visibility that this disease is getting, as a result of the challenge is truly invaluable.

People who have never before heard of ALS are now engaged in the fight to find treatments and a cure for ALS. And that is something worth “liking” and “retweeting”.

(Arshina Singh)