Mary’s Meals is an international charity that sets up school feeding projects in some of the world’s poorest communities, where hunger and poverty prevent children from gaining an education. Mary’s Meals provides one daily meal in a place of learning to attract chronically poor children into a classroom where they receive an education that can, in the future, be their ladder out of poverty.
During 1992 brothers Magnus and Fergus MacFarlane-Barrow followed news on the Bosnian conflict with increasing horror. They were so moved that they decided to organise an appeal as the public continued sending donations they soon became registered charity, Scottish International Relief (SIR).
Mary’s Meals was born in 2002 when Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow visited Malawi during a famine and met a young boy named Edward. When asked what his dreams were in life, he replied simply:
“I want to have enough food to eat and to go to school one day.”
For the last 5 years St Vincent de Paul Parish has been supporting Mary’s Meals in their mission to set up worldwide school feeding projects in some of the world’s poorest communities, where poverty and hunger prevent children from gaining an education.
We began supporting Mary’s Meals Sponsor a School campaign in 2011 and our sponsored school is Mulambe Primary School, Zomba, Southern Malawi. We reached our initial fundraising target in April 2012 and the school began receiving Mary’s Meals shortly afterwards.
In April 2015, building work on our first sponsored kitchen was completed at the school.
When the feeding program began there were 769 children enrolled at the school, this has now grown 1178 in 2015.
Thanks to the fantastic fundraising efforts within the parish we have been able to raise a further £10,266 for Mary’s Meals in 2015 through the Breakfast Café and the special collection.
For more information on Mary’s Meals : https://www.marysmeals.org.uk/