Mary's Meals
It began when Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow met Edward aged 14 from Malawi. His mother was dying from HIV/AIDS and Magnus asked Edward about his ambitions.
Edward said he wanted to have a meal and go to school. That was the extent of his dreams. Mary's Meals began in order to help children like Edward.
Mary's Meals is a very simple idea. One meal, given every day, to a hungry, impoverished child in school.
For a little as £6.15 per year they can provide a child with a meal everyday. Mary's Meals provides daily meals in school for over 360,000 children in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe.
Giving that meal though is like dropping a pebble into a pond. The outward ripples are life changing and they are beautiful. Children who never attended school before, because they were too busy working to help their families put food on the table, are enabled by this meal to enter the classroom. They gain the education that can provide an escape from poverty for them and their communities.
Only when people have benefited from an education can they win their battles with chronic poverty, poor agricultural techniques, corruption and HIV/AIDS.
In this way the ripples from Mary's Meals will continue to spread out through generations to come, setting people free from the bondage of poverty.
In hundreds of villages and shanty towns in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America, local volunteers are freely give their time to make Mary's Meals happen.
Mary's Meals consists of lots of little acts of love, stretching from those who donate and raise funds through to those who do the daily works of preparing and serving them.
Mary's Meals began in 2002 feeding orphans in Malawi. By the end of 2006 they were feeding over 100,000 children. Hunger kills 6 million children every year before they reach the age of 5. Chronic hunger ruins the lives of 300 million others.
An education can set a child free from poverty in adult life. And not only that child but his children too. To gain an education the child first needs to attend school and then be given the opportunity to learn.
For more information, please visit www.marysmeals.org/uk/