Mary's Meals
Mary's Meals, formerly known as Scottish International Relief, is a registered charity which sets up school feeding programmes in some of the world's poorest communities, where hunger and poverty prevent children from gaining an education. It was founded in 2002 and has grown from its first feeding operation of 200 children in Malawi, to a worldwide campaign, providing free school meals in hundreds of schools and feeding more than two million children daily. Mary's Meals is named after Mary, the mother of Jesus, by its founders, who were inspired by their Catholic faith, although the charity is not a Catholic organisation.
History
SIR began in 1992 during the Bosnian War, when brothers Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, OBE, FRSGS, and Fergus MacFarlane-Barrow organised a local appeal for blankets and food. They filled a Jeep with aid and delivered their cargo to Medjugorje in Bosnia and Herzegovina. They returned to Scotland expecting to resume work as fish farmers in Argyll, but in their absence, their parents' shed had been filled with yet more donations, resulting in eventually driving from Scotland to Bosnia a total of 23 times to deliver supplies.Magnus took a 'gap year' and has never gone back to his old job. The project was registered as a charity, then named as Scottish International Relief.
During a trip to Malawi in 2002, Magnus decided to attract girls and boys to school by providing meals. From feeding 200 children in southern Malawi in 2002, Mary's Meals now works with communities in 17 different countries around the world, providing meals for more than 3 million children every school day.
In 2023, Mary's Meals was awarded the.
Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow
In 2010, Magnus was praised as a CNN Hero for his role in founding and running Mary's Meals.He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2011 New Year Honours. In April 2015, he was named one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world. Magnus' book, The Shed That Fed A Million Children, reached the UK's prestigious Times and Sunday Times best-seller list immediately after its release. Magnus has also received honorary degrees from the University of Hull, Glasgow Caledonian University, the University of Stirling, and the University of Strathclyde.
Magnus has given many public talks to audiences large and small, including delivering the key note address at the World Food Prize in 2013. He has also spoken at youth festivals and Christian conferences and other speaker events geared at a variety of audiences including entrepreneurs, food industry experts and educators.
Magnus was awarded the Human Dignity Award in 2014, by the speaker of the Dail on behalf of the Oireachtas Human Dignity Group, in recognition for his contribution to human rights and dignity.
Soon after, Magnus met Julie, a nurse, who volunteered to help him deliver emergency aid. Julie became committed to the charity, and its founder too. The couple married and now have seven children together.
Mary's Meals
Mary's Meals is a global movement which sets up school feeding programmes in communities where poverty and hunger prevent children from gaining an education. Mary's Meals provides daily meals in school for more than one million children in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean and Eastern Europe.Support for Mary's Meals is global, with fundraising groups in Australia, Austria, Canada, Croatia, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, UAE, UK and USA.
Malawi
In Malawi, usually land is donated in order to build a kitchen adjacent to the school. Teachers and parents organise a pool of volunteers who will take their turn cooking and serving the meals.Mary's Meals provides the kitchen, cooking equipment, training, ongoing support and of course, regular supplies of nutritious Likuni Phala. Each project is visited regularly by Mary's Meals' staff to support the volunteers and ensure the smooth running of the programme. They also collect data from the school to monitor the impact school feeding is having on the students.
The Backpack Project
One of Mary's Meals' projects is The Backpack Project, which encourages supporters to donate school backpacks and fill them with materials such as notebooks, pencils, flip-flops and T-shirts to send to children in Malawi. The Backpack Project was the subject of TV coverage through Five's Britain's Kindest Kids competition, and an STV feature on Holyrood Secondary School pupils' visit to Malawi.Emergency Aid
Today, the main focus of Mary's Meals is its school feeding programmes, but it also has a history of providing emergency relief to many countries, such as Haiti, Somalia, Bosnia and Kosovo.Somalia
During the 2011 East Africa drought, Mary's Meals launched a public appeal for funds to help people suffering as a result of the famine in Somalia which, at its height, was estimated by the UN to be claiming the lives of 250 children every day. Joining forces with South African charity Gift of the Givers, Mary's Meals has sent likuni phala – the same nutritional maize-based porridge that it feeds to children at Mary's Meals school feeding programmes in Malawi – to the Somali capital Mogadishu. As of April 2012, food from Mary's Meals – cooked and served in feeding camps by Gift of the Givers – has amounted to 6.8 million meals.Haiti
On 12 January 2010 a magnitude 7 earthquake struck Haiti at around 5 pm local time. The quake killed an estimated 200,000 people, left thousands more homeless and devastated the capital Port-au-Prince. Haiti was already the poorest nation in the Americas before this disaster which was why Mary's Meals was working there. Members of the team of Mary's Meals partners in Port-au-Prince were killed and their office buildings destroyed. In nearby Cité Soleil the 8 schools served by Mary's Meals were badly damaged. Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow visited Haiti a few days later and once more in July 2010. He reported progress in the massive rebuilding projects underway but expressed that with the amount of money being donated not enough was being done by the charities working in Haiti.Burma
left thousands dead and thousands more homeless with their livelihoods ruined. Mary's Meals already had partners in Burma and their long experience of working in the particularly difficult conditions within Burma meant they were able to gain access to areas badly affected by the floods.As a result, Mary's Meals were able to run several relief and rehabilitation projects. Among them are: the provision of food, clean water and clothing, the rebuilding of 3 schools destroyed by the storms and an orphanage that will provide care for abandoned children.