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18th October 2016 -
Mary's Meals - Making the Difference
Richard Leeson
At the meeting on 18th October members listened to a
fascinating presentation on the history and work of the Scottish based charity,
Mary’s Meals given by Richard Leeson. Richard has a background in financial
services and is a volunteer speaker for the charity.
The Charity started in 1992 when Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow and his brother Fergus
organised an appeal, in their local area of Argyll, to support the relief effort
for those suffering in the Bosnian conflict. From this start, Magnus set up a
registered charity Scottish International Relief (SIR) which expanded to provide
aid to projects in Romania, Liberia as well as the Balkans.
In 2002 SIR was providing famine relief in Malawi and Magnus’s experiences there
inspired him to set up Mary’s Meals which aims to provide hungry children with
one meal every school day. By 2010, 400,000 children were receiving Mary’s Meals
every school day.
Now, in 2016 Mary’s Meals has grown and provides food and support to children in
16 countries across Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and South America. Every day
they attend school over 1,180,000 of the world’s poorest children are fed.
The charity works with local community volunteers in the countries where they
provide food. For example in Malawi there are over 65,000 volunteers who take
turns to prepare, cook and serve the daily meal in each school. Wherever
possible they serve locally produced food which supports the local community,
the local farmers as well as the wider economy. Mary’s Meals spends a minimum of
93p out of every £1 on its charitable activities and just £12.20 feeds a child
for a whole school year.
There were a number of questions from the floor and Richard was thanked for his
thought provoking presentation. The next meeting is on 1st November when the
subject will be “Air Traffic Control - how does it work?”
Back to 2016 - 2017 programme
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