21st February 2023

21st February 2023 - Mary's Meals update

At the meeting of 21st February members heard an absorbing presentation from Jim Sweeney on the origins and current work of the Scottish based charity Mary’s Meals. Jim has a background in community/ continuing education and is a volunteer speaker for the Charity.

In 1992 the MacFarlane-Barrow family from Argyll set up Scottish International Relief (SIR) to deliver aid to Bosnia-Herzegovina during the Balkans conflict. Over the next 10 years SIR continued to expand the range of aid and help to Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and other parts in the world.

A fateful visit in 2002 by Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow to Malawi during a famine was the inspiration which led to the founding of Mary’s Meals. By providing a daily meal in a school, hungry children are attracted to the classroom where they receive an education that could be their ladder out of poverty. In the schools where Mary’s Meals are provided there is an increase in enrolment, attendance and attainment.

From that first step in 2002 which began by feeding just 200 children in Malawi the Charity has grown and is now feeding 2.4 million hungry children every school day across 18 different countries.

The Charity works with local community 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. However costs are continuing to rise and it now takes £19.15 to feed a child for a whole school year. This has increased from £12.20 per child in 2016.

There were a number of questions from the floor and Jim was thanked for his though provoking presentation.

The next meeting is on 7th March when the subject will be “The 1953 Coronation”.

Back to 2022 - 2023 programme