Mary’s Meals feeds 2,429,182 hungry children every school day
PHOTO: Children with their serving of Mary’s Meals – at Ellen Mill Scarborough School in Liberia.
Mary’s Meals has warned that the cost of feeding children in the world’s poorest countries has risen by an unprecedented 20% – and that it faces significant challenges in delivering its international school feeding programme in 2023.
The charity serves nutritious school meals in 18 countries, including Malawi, Yemen and Haiti. The promise of food attracts hungry children into the classroom, where they can gain an education that can be their ladder out of poverty.
Increases in prices for commodities – such as grain, fuel and fertiliser – mean the cost to feed a child with Mary’s Meals for a school year has increased from £15.90 to £19.15. This is the largest increase in the charity’s 20-year history.
Daniel Adams, executive director of Mary’s Meals, says: “An uncertain year lies ahead, with the escalating cost of living causing much pain for both the children around the world who eat our school meals and those here in the UK who make our work possible.
“Simply put, our income is not growing at the same rate as the cost of feeding children.”
Mary’s Meals feeds 2,429,182 children every school day. Alongside the cost of living crisis, many of the countries where the charity works are impacted by conflict, climate change and the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic which are increasing levels of hunger and poverty.
Daniel adds: “There has never been a better – or more urgent – time to support our work. Until 31 January 2023, donations to Mary’s Meals will be matched by a group of generous supporters, up to £1.5 million. This means that any donation, no matter the size, will have twice the impact and help even more desperately hungry children.
“The relentless kindness and generosity of people here in the UK have helped us to grow from feeding just 200 children in Malawi in 2002 to more than 2.4 million children around the world today. It is because of these people that we approach the many challenges we face in 2023 with a deep sense of hope.”
Until 31 January 2023, donations to Mary’s Meals are being doubled by a generous group of supporters – up to £1.5 million. To find out more about the Double The Love campaign, visit marysmeals.org.uk
About Mary’s Meals
- Mary’s Meals is a simple idea that works. The charity provides one daily meal in a place of learning in order to attract chronically poor children into the classroom, where they receive an education that can, in the future, be their ladder out of poverty.
- Mary’s Meals feeds more than 2.4 million children every school day in 18 countries: Benin, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Haiti, India, Kenya, Lebanon, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Myanmar, Niger, South Sudan, Syria, Thailand, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Yemen
- The average global cost to feed a child with Mary’s Meals for a whole school year is just £19.15.
- Independently verified research from Malawi, Liberia and Zambia shows that in schools where children receive Mary’s Meals, hunger is reduced, enrolment increases, attendance improves, drop-out rates and absences fall, concentration in lessons is heightened, attainment levels increase, parents are less anxious, and children are happier.
- The Mary’s Meals campaign was born in 2002 when Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow visited Malawi during a famine and met a mother dying from AIDS. When Magnus asked her eldest son, Edward, what his dreams were in life, he replied simply: “I want to have enough food to eat and to go to school one day.”
- Mary’s Meals is committed to spending at least 93% of donations directly on its charitable activities. This is only possible because much of the charity’s work is done by an army of dedicated volunteers.
- Please visit org.uk to find out more about the work of Mary’s Meals.
About Double The Love
- From 1 November 2022 to 31 January 2023, donations made to Mary’s Meals will be doubled by a group of generous supporters, up to £1.5 million.
Please visit marysmeals.org.uk/double to find out more