Mary's meals
Encyclopedia
Mary's Meals is a school feeding movement and the name of a charity formerly known as Scottish International Relief (SIR). It was founded in 2002 and has grown from its first feeding operation of 200 children in Malawi, to a world-wide campaign, providing free school meal
s in hundreds of schools and feeding over 500,000 children daily.
The SIR website of 2004 gives a clear account of it's origins:
Medjugorje - The Roots
"The idea of Mary’s Meals came from UK businessman, Tony Smith. He would say it was the inspiration of Mary, the mother of God. The origins of Tony Smith’s idea are the origins of Scottish International Relief (SIR) itself – a small village in Bosnia called Medjugorje. In 1981, 6 children claimed the Virgin Mary was appearing to them and calling herself the Queen of Peace. Mary has continued up until the present day to appear daily and give messages for the world. In her own words she tells us, “I have come to tell the world that God exists. He is the fullness of life and to enjoy this fullness and peace, you must return to God.”
Since these extraordinary events began millions of people from across the globe, of all faiths and none, have visited Medjugorje. Countless have left spiritually renewed. Many have experienced physical healing.
The MacFarlane-Barrow family visited in 1982 and their experiences affected their lives in all sorts of ways. Soon afterwards they turned their guest house in Argyll into a prayer house/retreat centre – Craig Lodge House of Prayer. Very quickly the prayer house became home to a community – a group of families and individuals who wanted to support each other in following the call to holiness coming from Medjugorje.
One Man's Dream
Tony Smith had also been touched by Medjugorje. While visiting Malawi Tony Smith was moved by the plight of the poor who were suffering acutely due to severe food shortages.
One evening he listened enthralled to a TV interview with US Senator George (ed) McGovern who helped found the World Food Programme. Senator McGovern explained his belief with great passion that providing daily meals to the 300 million hungry children of the world could be the, “catalyst to a modern-day Marshall Plan for economic development in developing countries”. Pondering on all he had heard, the concept of a movement that established school feeding programme's for the world’s hungriest children came to Tony Smith.
Conscious of Mary’s part in his life and the blessings that had stemmed from Medjugorje; he gave his idea the name, Mary’s Meals, and placed the whole project in her hands. During a meeting with Magnus MacFarlane Barrow, Tony Smith shared his vision of Mary’s Meals and suggested that SIR put it into practice.
Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, SIR charity's founder, believes that it is possible to combat and defeat world hunger and encourage education by the simple method of providing school meals. High profile supporters of Mary's Meals include the entrepreneur and Dragons' Den
star Duncan Bannatyne
and the philanthropist Sir Tom Farmer
.
One of Mary's Meals' key projects is based in Malawi
where over 400,000 children are now receiving Mary's Meals, a daily meal of 'likuni phala' a vitamin-laced porridge of Malawi-grown maize, cooked by volunteer mothers at the children's schools.
Mary's Meals now helps feed children in countries in: Albania
, Romania
, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Ukraine
, Malawi
, Uganda
, Sudan
, Kenya
, Liberia
, Zambia
, Haiti
, India
, Bangladesh
, Philippines
, Burma and Thailand
. Their awareness and fundraising efforts include the Backpack Project and World Porridge Day
.
SIR charity began in 1992 during the Balkan conflict, when Magnus and Fergus MacFarlane Barrow organised a local appeal for blankets and food. They filled a Land Rover with aid and delivered their cargo to Medjugorje in Bosnia. The brothers, aged 25 and 27, returned to Scotland expecting to resume work as fish farmers, but in their absence their parents’ garage had been filled with more donations.
Magnus took a ‘gap year’, to deliver the aid for as long as it was needed and provided, and has never gone back to his old job. The donations didn’t stop – they still haven’t – so the project was registered as a charity, then named Scottish International Relief.
and Glenorchy Camanachd
.http://www.skyecamanachd.com/default.aspx.locid-087new2ev.Lang-EN.htm
He was born into a Catholic family and brought up in Dalmally
Argyll
, Scotland
. His parents' hotel ran as a Highland hunting lodge during the season and much of Magnus' childhood was spent walking across the Highlands, Deer Stalking, and Salmon Fishing. In 1983 a visit to Medjugorje reawakened the MacFarlane-Barrow family's Catholic faith and Magnus' parents felt God was calling them to convert their hotel into a Family House of Prayer. To this day people from many parts of the world come to stay in Craig Lodge Community
. It was and still is from Craig Lodge that Magnus directs Mary's Meals. Magnus lives in Argyll, is married, and has 7 children. As founder and CEO of Mary's Meals his vision and ideas continue to inspire and direct the work they do.
Magnus's work has been recognised by several prestigious awards including:
Magnus asked the oldest son what he hoped for in life, and he said: "to have enough to eat and to go to school one day." The request struck a chord, and led to the evolution of SIR into Mary's Meals at it exists today.
The Mary's Meals Campaign, which is the primary project - and namesake - of the charity is an international movement to set up school feeding projects in communities where poverty and hunger prevent children from gaining an education. Mary's Meals provides daily meals in school for over 400,000 children in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean and Eastern Europe.
The Mary's Meals Campaign is hugely successful and there has been a recordable increase in school attendance and in average grades in all the schools that the project starts working in.
Mary's Meals tries to work closely with local communities when establishing a school feeding project. Everyone - chiefs, teachers, parents, church leaders - are involved in the process. 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 nutritous Likuni Phala. Each project is visited regularly by Mary's Meals staff to support the volunteers and to ensure all is going as it should. They also collect data from the school to monitor the impact school feeding is having on the pupils.
by responding to needs with appropriate relief aid.
struck Haiti at around 5pm 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. Mary's Meals partners in Port-au-Prince were in the midst of the disaster and sadly members of their team 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.
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.
where one of SIR's support groups was based. The orphans were moved from cots in hospitals which they had never left and taken to the house. When they arrived some of them, as old as 7, were so starved of care that they had never even learned to walk, having never been taken out of their cots. The children are now young adults but the homes continue to provide them with the support they need. Mary's Meals operate two other similar homes in Romania and other children's homes in Colombia and Peru.
building and a document giving the school's profile.
In the last few years Mary's Meals has sought to extend its support beyond the borders of the UK. Mary's Meals now have supporter bases in America, Australia, Austria, Germany, Croatia, Ireland, Italy and Bosnia -Herzegovina. These bases raise money and awareness for the charity in their areas. Some take part in the Backpack appeal and all fundraise for the Mary's Meals campaign and for the emergency aid campaigns.
Free school meal
A Free School Meal, provided to a child or young person during a school break, is paid for by Government. For a child to qualify for a Free School Meal, their parent or carer must be receiving particular qualifying benefits as stated by Government...
s in hundreds of schools and feeding over 500,000 children daily.
The SIR website of 2004 gives a clear account of it's origins:
Medjugorje - The Roots
"The idea of Mary’s Meals came from UK businessman, Tony Smith. He would say it was the inspiration of Mary, the mother of God. The origins of Tony Smith’s idea are the origins of Scottish International Relief (SIR) itself – a small village in Bosnia called Medjugorje. In 1981, 6 children claimed the Virgin Mary was appearing to them and calling herself the Queen of Peace. Mary has continued up until the present day to appear daily and give messages for the world. In her own words she tells us, “I have come to tell the world that God exists. He is the fullness of life and to enjoy this fullness and peace, you must return to God.”
Since these extraordinary events began millions of people from across the globe, of all faiths and none, have visited Medjugorje. Countless have left spiritually renewed. Many have experienced physical healing.
The MacFarlane-Barrow family visited in 1982 and their experiences affected their lives in all sorts of ways. Soon afterwards they turned their guest house in Argyll into a prayer house/retreat centre – Craig Lodge House of Prayer. Very quickly the prayer house became home to a community – a group of families and individuals who wanted to support each other in following the call to holiness coming from Medjugorje.
One Man's Dream
Tony Smith had also been touched by Medjugorje. While visiting Malawi Tony Smith was moved by the plight of the poor who were suffering acutely due to severe food shortages.
One evening he listened enthralled to a TV interview with US Senator George (ed) McGovern who helped found the World Food Programme. Senator McGovern explained his belief with great passion that providing daily meals to the 300 million hungry children of the world could be the, “catalyst to a modern-day Marshall Plan for economic development in developing countries”. Pondering on all he had heard, the concept of a movement that established school feeding programme's for the world’s hungriest children came to Tony Smith.
Conscious of Mary’s part in his life and the blessings that had stemmed from Medjugorje; he gave his idea the name, Mary’s Meals, and placed the whole project in her hands. During a meeting with Magnus MacFarlane Barrow, Tony Smith shared his vision of Mary’s Meals and suggested that SIR put it into practice.
Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, SIR charity's founder, believes that it is possible to combat and defeat world hunger and encourage education by the simple method of providing school meals. High profile supporters of Mary's Meals include the entrepreneur and Dragons' Den
Dragons' Den
Dragons' Den is a series of reality television programmes featuring entrepreneurs pitching their business ideas in order to secure investment finance from a panel of venture capitalists. The show originated in Japan as "Manē no Tora"...
star Duncan Bannatyne
Duncan Bannatyne
Duncan Walker Bannatyne, OBE is a Scottish entrepreneur, philanthropist and author. His business interests include hotels, health clubs, spas, media, TV, stage schools, property and transport. He is most famous for his appearance as a business angel on the BBC programme Dragons' Den...
and the philanthropist Sir Tom Farmer
Tom Farmer
Sir Thomas "Tom" Farmer, CVO, CBE, KCSG, FRSE, DL is a Scottish entrepreneur.One of seven siblings in a devoutly Catholic family, in 1964 Farmer founded his own tyre retailing business which he sold in 1969 for £450,000. Farmer "retired" to the United States, but became bored and decided to find a...
.
One of Mary's Meals' key projects is based in Malawi
Malawi
The Republic of Malawi is a landlocked country in southeast Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the northwest, Tanzania to the northeast, and Mozambique on the east, south and west. The country is separated from Tanzania and Mozambique by Lake Malawi. Its size...
where over 400,000 children are now receiving Mary's Meals, a daily meal of 'likuni phala' a vitamin-laced porridge of Malawi-grown maize, cooked by volunteer mothers at the children's schools.
Mary's Meals now helps feed children in countries in: Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
, Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
, Malawi
Malawi
The Republic of Malawi is a landlocked country in southeast Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the northwest, Tanzania to the northeast, and Mozambique on the east, south and west. The country is separated from Tanzania and Mozambique by Lake Malawi. Its size...
, Uganda
Uganda
Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...
, Sudan
Sudan
Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...
, Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
, Liberia
Liberia
Liberia , officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Sierra Leone on the west, Guinea on the north and Côte d'Ivoire on the east. Liberia's coastline is composed of mostly mangrove forests while the more sparsely populated inland consists of forests that open...
, Zambia
Zambia
Zambia , officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The neighbouring countries are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west....
, Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
, Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
, Burma and Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
. Their awareness and fundraising efforts include the Backpack Project and World Porridge Day
World Porridge Day
World Porridge Day is an international event related to porridge. The event is organized to raise funds for the charity Mary's Meals, based in Argyll, Scotland, and to raise awareness about its efforts to aid starving children in developing countries, particular those in Africa stricken by drought...
.
History
The first Mary's Meals feeding, named as such, was in a small cluster of Primary schools in Chipini, Zomba district, Malawi organised by Tony Smith, Gay Russel and the Medical Missionaries of Mary. Other feeding of preschool orphan children in Blantyre was being run by Peter Nkata and this became part of Mary's Meals at the time he took on the role of Managing Director for Mary's Meals, Malawi.SIR charity began in 1992 during the Balkan conflict, when Magnus and Fergus MacFarlane Barrow organised a local appeal for blankets and food. They filled a Land Rover with aid and delivered their cargo to Medjugorje in Bosnia. The brothers, aged 25 and 27, returned to Scotland expecting to resume work as fish farmers, but in their absence their parents’ garage had been filled with more donations.
Magnus took a ‘gap year’, to deliver the aid for as long as it was needed and provided, and has never gone back to his old job. The donations didn’t stop – they still haven’t – so the project was registered as a charity, then named Scottish International Relief.
Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow
Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, OBE was born on 7 February 1968. He attended Oban High School as he was growing up and studied history at university before becoming a salmon farmer. He played shinty for both ScotlandScotland national shinty team
The Scotland national shinty team is the team selected to represent Scotland and the sport of shinty in the annual composite rules international with the Ireland national hurling team. The team represents the Camanachd Association....
and Glenorchy Camanachd
Glenorchy Camanachd
Glenorchy Camanachd is a shinty team from Dalmally, Scotland, playing in the Marine Harvest South Division One.- History :Old letters and poetry show that organised shinty was played in Dalmally in and about 1880. These games were played by teams from each side of the River Orchy for a cup...
.http://www.skyecamanachd.com/default.aspx.locid-087new2ev.Lang-EN.htm
He was born into a Catholic family and brought up in Dalmally
Dalmally
Dalmally is a village in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. It is located near the A85 road and is served by Dalmally railway station....
Argyll
Argyll
Argyll , archaically Argyle , is a region of western Scotland corresponding with most of the part of ancient Dál Riata that was located on the island of Great Britain, and in a historical context can be used to mean the entire western coast between the Mull of Kintyre and Cape Wrath...
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. His parents' hotel ran as a Highland hunting lodge during the season and much of Magnus' childhood was spent walking across the Highlands, Deer Stalking, and Salmon Fishing. In 1983 a visit to Medjugorje reawakened the MacFarlane-Barrow family's Catholic faith and Magnus' parents felt God was calling them to convert their hotel into a Family House of Prayer. To this day people from many parts of the world come to stay in Craig Lodge Community
Craig Lodge Community
Craig Lodge Community is a lay community of the Roman Catholic Church based in Dalmally, Argyll in the west Highlands of Scotland.-History:Craig Lodge, a former hunting lodge in Dalmally, Argyll, Scotland, was run by Calum and Mary Anne MacFarlane-Barrow as a guest house until a pilgrimage to...
. It was and still is from Craig Lodge that Magnus directs Mary's Meals. Magnus lives in Argyll, is married, and has 7 children. As founder and CEO of Mary's Meals his vision and ideas continue to inspire and direct the work they do.
Magnus's work has been recognised by several prestigious awards including:
- Outstanding young Person of the World 2005 (Awarded by Junior Chamber InternationalJunior Chamber InternationalJunior Chamber International is the only worldwide non-political and non-sectarian youth service organization. It is an international community of citizens between the ages of to with the aim and purpose of creating positive changes in the world...
) - Unsung Hero 2006(Awarded by the Sunday Mail)
- CNN Hero 2010
- Twice awarded with the Paul Harris Award by the Rotary Club
- Magnus was awarded an OBE (Order of the British EmpireOrder of the British EmpireThe Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
) on the 2011 New Years Honours List
Projects
Other than the Mary's Meals Campaign the charity carries out several other high profile projects, most notably the Backpack Appeal.Mary's Meals Campaign
On a visit to Malawi in 2002, Magnus met a boy whose plight led to a new focus and the charity's main area of work today. Lying on the floor of her hut, the boy's mother was dying of AIDS, surrounded by her six children.Magnus asked the oldest son what he hoped for in life, and he said: "to have enough to eat and to go to school one day." The request struck a chord, and led to the evolution of SIR into Mary's Meals at it exists today.
The Mary's Meals Campaign, which is the primary project - and namesake - of the charity is an international movement to set up school feeding projects in communities where poverty and hunger prevent children from gaining an education. Mary's Meals provides daily meals in school for over 400,000 children in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean and Eastern Europe.
The Mary's Meals Campaign is hugely successful and there has been a recordable increase in school attendance and in average grades in all the schools that the project starts working in.
Malawi
Mary's Meals Malawi is by far the biggest projects that Mary's Meals carries out. It reaches over 400,000 children in the country. It also has the lowest running costs of just £6:15 for Mary's Meals to feed a school child in Malawi for a year. This is due to good links with local farmers and the "army" of volunteers that make Mary's Meals happen in Malawi. This immense logistical operation with many volunteer mothers sacrificing their time and giving freely to Mary's Meals was instituted and managed by Peter Nkata for the first six years of Mary's Meals.Mary's Meals tries to work closely with local communities when establishing a school feeding project. Everyone - chiefs, teachers, parents, church leaders - are involved in the process. 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 nutritous Likuni Phala. Each project is visited regularly by Mary's Meals staff to support the volunteers and to ensure all is going as it should. They also collect data from the school to monitor the impact school feeding is having on the pupils.
Backpack Appeal
One of Mary's Meals' most high profile projects is the Backpack Project, which encourages school children to donate their old school backpacks and fill them with school materials such as notebooks, pencils, flip-flops and T-shirts, to send to children in countries such as Liberia, Uganda and Malawi. The backpack project was the subject of recent TV coverage through Five's Britain's Kindest Kids competition, and an STV feature on Holyrood Secondary School pupils' visit to Malawi.Emergency Aid
As well as supporting long term projects, Mary's Meals and SIR has responded to emergencies across many countries, such as Bosnia and KosovoKosovo War
The term Kosovo War or Kosovo conflict was two sequential, and at times parallel, armed conflicts in Kosovo province, then part of FR Yugoslav Republic of Serbia; from early 1998 to 1999, there was an armed conflict initiated by the ethnic Albanian "Kosovo Liberation Army" , who sought independence...
by responding to needs with appropriate relief aid.
Haiti
On January 12, 2010 a magnitude 7 earthquake2010 Haiti earthquake
The 2010 Haiti earthquake was a catastrophic magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake, with an epicentre near the town of Léogâne, approximately west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital. The earthquake occurred at 16:53 local time on Tuesday, 12 January 2010.By 24 January, at least 52 aftershocks...
struck Haiti at around 5pm 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. Mary's Meals partners in Port-au-Prince were in the midst of the disaster and sadly members of their team were killed and their office buildings destroyed. In nearby Cité Soleil
Cité Soleil
Cité Soleil is an extremely impoverished and densely populated commune located in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area in Haiti. Cité Soleil originally developed as a shanty town and grew to an estimated 200,000 to 400,000 residents, the majority of whom live in extreme poverty...
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
Cyclone NargisCyclone Nargis
Cyclone Nargis , was a strong tropical cyclone that caused the worst natural disaster in the recorded history of Burma. The cyclone made landfall in Burma on Friday, May 2, 2008, causing catastrophic destruction and at least 138,000 fatalities...
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.
Bangladesh
In November 2007 a cyclone caused waves 10 to 15 feet in height that swept away the fragile houses of the poor in Borguna, Bangladesh. Relief materials were distributed. The community appealed to Mary's Meals for assistance and soon they were providing help to rebuild a collapsed secondary school in Borguna. The reconstructed building was be designed to double up as cyclone shelter to protect people from the community from storms in the future.Other Projects
Since Mary's Meals took over as SIR's main project and eventually became the charity it has focussed most of its efforts on the two main Mary's Meals projects, The Backpack Appeal and Mary's Meals itself. Yet it still carries on with all the work it did previously under the name of SIR.Iona House
Some of SIR's first projects after the Balkan conflict were with the orphans of Eastern Europe - particularly Romania. Here it built and maintained homes for abandoned children many of whom were orphaned by the AIDs epidemic. The first such house was called Iona House - named after the Hebridean IslandIona
Iona is a small island in the Inner Hebrides off the western coast of Scotland. It was a centre of Irish monasticism for four centuries and is today renowned for its tranquility and natural beauty. It is a popular tourist destination and a place for retreats...
where one of SIR's support groups was based. The orphans were moved from cots in hospitals which they had never left and taken to the house. When they arrived some of them, as old as 7, were so starved of care that they had never even learned to walk, having never been taken out of their cots. The children are now young adults but the homes continue to provide them with the support they need. Mary's Meals operate two other similar homes in Romania and other children's homes in Colombia and Peru.
Sponsor a School
The sponsor a school campaign is another successful project carried out by Mary's Meals. The Sponsor a School campaign involves an individual or group meeting the costs of feeding children at any given school or providing the money to build a kitchen onto the side of a school, or both. The campaign runs in Malawi and Liberia although there is no need for kitchens in Liberia so there it is just a case of meeting feeding costs. All those who sponsor a school in any form get a school allocated them, their name on a plaque on the side of thebuilding and a document giving the school's profile.
Sustainability
The Mary's Meals campaign has been criticised for relying on handouts and donations and as such being unsustainable. However the charity claims that it does not simply hand out food or rely on grants. It buys locally sourced food - which helps boost local economies - and provides it in a sustainable way with a view of the overall development of the countries it works in. Whole generations of children are receiving an education they would otherwise never have had. This, Mary's Meals claims, is the source of its sustainability; it is creating a whole new skilled and educated young population in developing countries that can only benefit the country's economy and help break the poverty cycle. Mary's Meals say they take the long term view, they have exit strategies and all their projects are aimed at eventual self-sufficiency in the communities they operate in and their projects are designed to engender the self-sufficiency straight away.Fundraising
Being a British charity it is still Britain in which Mary's Meals has the largest infrastructure of supporters in place. Support groups meet and hold events in many towns and cities in the UK. Parishes and businesses have adopted the charity in many areas. Mary's Meals also has several charity shops in various UK locations.In the last few years Mary's Meals has sought to extend its support beyond the borders of the UK. Mary's Meals now have supporter bases in America, Australia, Austria, Germany, Croatia, Ireland, Italy and Bosnia -Herzegovina. These bases raise money and awareness for the charity in their areas. Some take part in the Backpack appeal and all fundraise for the Mary's Meals campaign and for the emergency aid campaigns.
Growing Awareness
On 12 August 2010, Mary's Meals Chief Executive Magnus Macfarlane-Barrow was praised a CNN Hero for his role in founding and running Mary's Meals. A video detailing his work with Mary's Meals was broadcast across the USA and the internet, reaching millions of viewers and further promoting the work of Mary's Meals.External links
- Mary's Meals Official Site
- Craig Lodge Official Site
- Medjugorje Official Site
- CNN Heroes 2010
- Duncan Bannatyne in the Daily Record
- Feeding the world form a garden shed -The Daily Telegraph
- Network of International Development Organisations in Scotland
- Article about Liberia in The Telegraph Christmas Appeal 2008
- The Telegraph Christmas Appeal 2008