marys meals extra issue 10 summer 2011

extra e-magazine formary’s meals supportersIssue no 10 - June 2011

ContentsKey Figures

Project NewsCountdown to a new country (Sudan)Return to Liberia (Liberia)The House that will always be home (Romania)Full of Beans (Uganda)The Width of a Smile (Malawi)Backpack Diary (Malawi)

Fundraising NewsUp and along (UK fundraising)International supporter news (Global fundraising)World Porridge DayShed reaches national finals

WelcomeWelcome to the summer issue of the Mary’s Meals Extra, our quarterly e-bulletin designed for supporters who would like regular news updates from Mary’s Meals. It is aimed particularly at those who fundraise and spread the word about our work.

Please feel free to photocopy, use, or republish any of the contents if you think they would be useful to spread the word about Mary’s Meals. You can also keep up-to-date by signing up to our Facebook and Twitter pages at www.facebook.com/marysmeals and www.twitter.com/marysmeals. Our website features regular news updates as well as information about all our projects.

In this issueMary’s Meals works in 13 schools in South Sudan which is due to gain independence from the north on July 9. Father Parladé explains how he is ensuring that children at our schools get fed, despite the challenges of unrest and poor harvests.

Liberia, home to one of our biggest projects, has also featured in international news coverage, as it faces an influx of refugees from Ivory Coast. Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, Mary’s Meals founder, reflects on his return this spring, 14 years after the charity first helped victims of civil war.

We recommend that anyone who has donated to our backpack project reads Gillian Boyle’s diary. She led a team delivering bags to a remote island on Lake Malawi and her account explains why they are so necessary - and brought tears to our eyes.

This issue also includes news from our overseas support groups, and a report on feats of endurance that fundraisers are undertaking for Mary’s Meals this summer. Our regular update on the numbers of children we are feeding around the world appears on page 2.

Thank you for your continued support and please keep your stories and pictures coming! We would love to hear about what you have been up to at [email protected]

Mary’s Meals Communication Team

Number of children receivinga daily meal in their

place of education in 2011

Albania - 356Bosnia – 24

Burma – 338Ecuador – 188Haiti – 14,813India – 3,893

Kenya – 18,243Liberia – 29,064

Malawi – 454,968Philippines – 2,000

Romania – 31Sudan – 3,416Thailand – 677

Uganda – 3,651Ukraine – 524Zambia – 410

Total – 532,596

Total number of children receiving a daily meal in school = 532,596

Average cost of Mary’s Meals per child per year = £9.40 / €11 / $15

Cost of Mary’s Meals per child, per year in Malawi = £6.15/€7.20/$10

Worldwide cost per meal = 4 pence / 5 cents (Euros) and 6.5 cents (US)

Cost per meal in Malawi= 3 pence / 3.5 cents(Euros) and 5 cents (US)

Number of backpackssent overseas in 2011= 26,958

Key Figures

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“The challenges are many but the communities we work with are hungry for their children to have the chance to gain an education,” he says.

“Our schools which receive food have many learners. The children stay at school because they are fed – the long distance they have to walk doesn’t affect them so much.” The Mary’s Meals project in Yirol was started in 2007 at the request of the local community, who were determined to enable their children to access school. The meals are prepared by children’s mothers, who volunteer their time to help.

‘They face the ongoing threat of violence and livestock raids as well as the struggle for food and water ’

The Dinka people of Yirol are semi-nomadic and mostly depend on cattle for their living. They face the ongoing threat of violence and livestock raids as well as the struggle for food and water – earlier this month seven children were kidnapped during a militia raid in the main town.

Mary’s Meals work in southern Sudan is supported by Band Aid.

As civil unrest contributes to food shortages across Sudan, Mary’s Meals is providing daily school meals for more than 3,400 hungry primary school children.The charity is working with local volunteers to supply food for pupils in 13 schools in Yirol County near Lake Dinka. The mid-morning meal, which usually consists of maize and beans, encourages children to attend lessons, and for many will be the only guaranteed nutrition they receive.

Poor harvests and an influx of refugees from the north have put pressure on scarce resources in the region, increasing the risk of malnutrition and underlining the need for the school feeding programme.

Rising fuel prices and the fluctuating cost of food, caused by tension ahead of southern Sudan’s secession on July 9, have added to the challenges of delivering aid – our partners are travelling to Uganda to buy food as not enough is available locally.

Father Joseph Parladé, who administers Mary’s Meals Yirol project in partnership with Amsudan, is determined to keep providing support:

The troubled countdown to a new countrySudan in depth: Q&AFather Joseph Parladé, who delivers Mary’s Meals school feeding projects in South Sudan, explains the challenges facing the local Dinka people as the new country’s formal separation (secession) approaches on July 9.

What are your biggest concerns at the moment?People are very hungry. The rain has just begun now, when normally it starts at the beginning of May, or even April. It means that next year agriculture will not be very productive. Our brothers in the north have bad intentions towards us in the south. At the moment we are praying, asking for peace in the years to come. We hope that God will do what man can not do.

How are you getting food for the school feeding programme? I am going to send some people to buy food in Uganda, because there isn’t any food here to buy. I hope that they will be able to get fuel there for travelling back. They have fuel shortages in Uganda too because of a lack of fuel caused by the war in Libya, but you can get hold of some – the problem there is not as bad there as here in South Sudan.

How has the security situation affected your work? I have been here, in the war, for nearly 40 years. Little by little, I am understanding that if we want to do something good, we must plan the programme as usual, and adapt when the situation obliges us to change. At the moment, I think we can continue in the same rhythm.

‘ I am sure if Mary’s Meal food was not here, many children would not come to school, because of famine.’

Have recent national events affected school attendance? Until now the boys and girls have still been coming to school and the attendance is good.

Do you expect that the lives of people in Yirol will change after July 9?I am sure that life will change, but I don’t know if it will be for bad or good, for peace or war? Will the effects of the corruption of war lead people to enter a mentality of peace? This is my question now.

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Fourteen years ago, on my first ever visit to Liberia, I helped unload a container of aid sent from Scotland. At that time over half the population had been forced to flee their homes because of the brutal civil war and tens of thousands of suffering people were living in camps.

My memory is of desperate crowds pressing around us as we moved the gifts from Scotland – food, clothing, medicine etc – from the container to the storage space at the back of the St Gabriel’s parish church. Today the camps have long since gone, but the little container is still here, now converted into a shop on the edge of the main road that leads out of the city to Bomi County.

It was that same road that many took at the end of the war as they returned to their villages. We (Scottish International Relief, as the organisation was known at the time) went with them, shifting our support from emergency aid in the camps, to helping people rebuild their lives in war ravished villages.

‘ Today, in this area of Liberia, over 24 000 children receive Mary’s Meals every day. ‘

At the Mary’s Meals base in Tubmanburg today, the army checkpoints have gone, new houses are being built and little businesses are springing up. Thousands of sacks of rice are stacked neatly in the warehouse - soon to become school meals.Some of our team laugh and joke as they load one of the trucks and head off to deliver a month’s supply to one of the village schools. Today, in this area of Liberia, over 24 000 children receive Mary’s Meals every day.

Beside the warehouse, the deaf children at our Oscar Romero School play with an enormous ball. They pile on it and roll over and land in a heap, shrieking and shouting. Walking to our office I have a surprise encounter with Paul, who I first met in 1997.

He was one of a group of men whom we had given a lift from the camps (where they had been living for three years) to their home village at the end of the war. They wanted to go back to begin clearing the land and rebuilding their houses so that they could bring the women and children of the village home.

After a long, nervous drive deep into the forest we found their broken, overgrown houses daubed in graffiti by the fighters who had forced them out. There were two skulls on the ground. Before they began work we walked around their village while they sang ‘Jesus Come, Devil Go.’

‘ The need is huge and we want reach another 10,000 children in the coming months.’

I remember watching them attack the encroaching forest with their machetes and being humbled by their courage.

Paul was the youngest of that group we left there that day. And here he was today standing on the road beside our compound in Tubmanburg with a big smile on his face. He explains that he is building a new home here, that he will be our neighbour.

Return to Liberia Mary’s Meals founder, Magnus MacFarlane Barrow, writes about his visit to Liberia, where the scars of civil war are slowly healing.

While one of his small children tugs at his leg, he shows me around his nearly complete, mud-wattle four room house. That afternoon I sit with the team in our office to plan the expansion of Mary’s Meals to more hungry children in this area. The need is huge and we want reach another 10,000 children in the coming months. Every now and then I cannot resist wandering from our meeting table, so I can see down the hill to where Paul is working on his new home with his children beside him.

There are many signs of progress in Liberia today, but people remain worried about what is happening in neighbouring Ivory Coast. The arrival of thousands of refugees fleeing that conflict has re-awakened many painful memories and, in this election year, has heightened a sense of anxiety about the future. Meanwhile the outcome of the trial of Charles Taylor, former Liberian warlord and dictator, hangs in the balance.

There are many reasons to be apprehensive about Liberia’s future but also lots of reasons to be hopeful. For parents in Bomi County at least one thing that is predictable. Their children will not go hungry at school.


MondayHaving loaded our truck with backpacks, footballs, crayons, notepads, paper and pencil cases, the distribution team made an early start. We were full of excitement, as it was the first time that any of us had travelled to the islands.

After a drive of over 690 km from Blantyre to Nkata Bay, we went to explore the metal boat we would be travelling on, the Ilala. Hundreds of people were moving on and off it, bringing shopping with them for the trip to their homes on the islands. I had never seen so many bananas in my life!

Finally, the time for departure was heralded by the loud blast of the ships horn.

TuesdayWe arrived in Chizumulu island at 0400. There is no dock so everything had to be unloaded by boat and brought to shore. It was mayhem as people tried to unload their goods with sleep filled eyes.

As we neared the beach we heard singing, shouting and clapping. We could hear the people but not see them in the darkness. When we got onto the beach it was full of women and children there to help and welcome us.

We walked the 1km to Chiteko school on foot and heard the cries of joy and excitement from the children as we got closer to the school. They were looking forward to seeing what was in the sacks and what Mary’s Meals had brought them.

‘ The children saw the boat coming and as we approached were singing songs and dancing on the shore.’

We went from class to class giving the children the bags. When each child had one, they returned to their seats and waited until everyone in their class had received theirs. We then counted “1-2-3… Open” and they opened their bags together.

The cries of joy were deafening as the children discovered what goodies were inside. Some of them were on their hands praising God for their good fortune. The children were released from class early to go home and show their family what they received in their backpacks.

Once we had finished giving the bags to the children, we headed down the path to the shore line to head to the next school by boat. We met excited parents, clapping their hands and thanking us for the gifts we had brought. It lifted our tiredness to see so many happy families.

At Same, the next school, some of the children were waiting for us on the shore as they had heard the sound of the engine around the bay. The school was on a steep hill, so it was hard bringing the sacks to the school, but we persevered as the excitement of the waiting children kept us motivated.

Backpack DiaryGillian Boyle, Logistics Manager in Malawi, organised the first delivery of backpacks to schools on Likoma and Chizumulu, remote islands on Lake Malawi. This is her report.

Once again we gave each child a backpack. The sound from the children was deafening. As we were finishing up, children from the first school we had visited were arriving to show their friends what they received. Some of them were bouncing tennis balls and others had their new clothing put on over their uniforms. It was humbling to see such simple things bring such pleasure to so many children.

At about 11 o’clock, we returned to the boat to head to the third school, a junior school whose pupils were aged from five to seven. We thought the children would have left for the day, but they were still waiting for us.

The children saw the boat coming and as we approached were singing songs and dancing on the shore. Glory and William from Mary’s Meals started to join in and there was a real festival mood.

As we reached the shore, adults appeared from the bushes and houses to help us unload. The children’s faces lit up as they received their bags and promptly sat down with wide twinkling eyes and smiles that went from ear to ear.

Wednesday, Thursday and FridayWe were up early to start distributions to the seven schools in Likoma island, the bigger of the two islands. Here there was one pick-up truck available to assist us.

Each evening we would meet people and they would tell us that their children were playing with their tennis balls or wearing their new clothes. We could hear the happy laughter as they played with each other in the evenings with their new things.

SaturdayWe headed back to meet the Ilala just as the sun was setting and we could see its silhouette on the water. Several of the local people who had helped us through the week met us at the shore to bid us farewell and thank us for the gifts Mary’s Meals had given to the youngsters on the island. We left these lovely, kind people with heavy hearts.

‘ It was humbling to see such simple things bring such pleasure to so many children.’

Just as we hauled anchor a storm broke and we got drenched. It was a frightening experience, seeing flashes of lightning hit the water and feeling the boat rock as the waves hit.

We finally reached Nkata Bay early in the morning, an exhausted but happy bunch. We realised that as a result of our work with Mary’s Meals and the contributions of its supporters, we had given a special gift to 3,546 children on the islands. This was the first trip of its kind for the Mary’s Meals logistics team. It was a tough challenge, but worth every bit of effort to see the joy on people’s faces.


Volunteer Kirsty Norris recently visited Kampala, Uganda, where she saw the difference a daily meal is making to children in two schools that receive Mary’s Meals.

St. James Bbiina Primary SchoolThis growing school has the largest population of any in Kampala, with class sizes ranging from 52 to 169 children. Many classes have two teachers due to the sheer size. The fact that each child receives a school meal makes this school highly sought after, as most government schools do not serve meals. Before Mary’s Meals most children at this school did not eat all day, despite many coming to school without breakfast.

Many of the children here come from low income families who live in the Luzira township. Initially the school did not have facilities for a nursery, however teachers noticed that children were taking small parts of their food, for example an egg, or bread, away with them to give to younger siblings. As a result it was agreed to expand to make sure they could come to school too - receiving the meals which are so important to their growth and health.

Bishop Cipriano High SchoolChildren here have long days at school, from 7 am until 8 pm for some age groups. School feeding has had a dramatic effect on pupils, who receive a meal of posho (maize mash) and beans and occasionally tinned fish, per day. Better concentration and few health complaints have been reported.

The school has medical centre and children used to frequent the hospital with hunger related complaints such as dizziness and headaches. This is now much less of a problem. Attendance rates are extremely high, as many children do

Damien Engelhardt joined the Mary’s Meals team in Malawi as a volunteer this spring. He writes about his experience.

The width of a smile

I had heard and read many things about Mary’s Meals, but until I’d seen it in action in Malawi, it was impossible to understand the full scope of the project and the vast impact it has.

Seeing the children moving, playing, laughing, singing and eating is quite an experience. They look positively full of joy and life – not how I might have expected children from one of poorest nations in the world to be behaving.

‘ I don’t think it’s possible to understate the importance of nutrition, attention and education on a child’s development before they’re six years old. ‘

I realise how hard some children have it when we see them at the roadside on the drive to visit a school. They are doing nothing, and they are so skinny, with no shoes, tattered clothes, and a sullen expression of hunger and a deep sadness - it’s heart-breaking.

But then we arrive at the school and see the smiles of children there, and all the hardship seem to dissipate. They greet Mary’s Meals vehicles with songs and laughter. They too don’t have shoes or clothes without holes – but the despair in their eyes is gone.I imagine what they’ll be like in 20 years. They’ll all

have a basic education, half might have secondary schooling and a few might go to university. And then they will be working for their country - for social services, for businesses, maybe even for Mary’s Meals. I see that one cup of porridge a day multiplying into an engine that propels this country forward. It’s a beautiful thing.

This image is even more striking when I visit the under-6 centres. These could have been the children I have seen sprawling in the streets. But these orphans and needy children are being given love, care, education and at least two square meals a day, which means they have the physical and emotional capacity and strength to learn – to go to school and progress like the other children.

Their leap from despair to hope is greater than anything I’ve seen. Their potential, once capped at a cruel level, soars. I don’t think it’s possible to understate the importance of nutrition, attention and education on a child’s development before they’re six years old.

The UN might have statistics to compare or measure the impact of organisations like Mary’s Meals, but the strongest indicators are the luminosity of their eyes, the volume of their voices and the width of their smiles. I am thrilled by the immediate impact of Mary’s Meals and cannot wait to see what Malawi is like in 20 years.

Full of beans: Uganda visit reportnot want to lose out on their meal. If a child is sent away from school they will often return at lunch time to eat.

During my meeting a parent came in begging for his child to be taken in to the school. Apparently this happens numerous times in a day, and the school has to be strict in its admittance policy to ensure it does not become any more over-crowded. The facilities at the school are outstanding. It was clean, well maintained and impressive. The children are provided with facilities to wash hands before and after eating, and they wash their own plates.

Meet EstherEsther is a pupil at Bishop Cipriano High School. She lives with her mother, who is a housemaid, in Kirombe township. She has one older brother and a younger sister. In order to pay her children’s school fees, Esther’s mother leaves for work very early in the morning and often won’t return until late at night. Esther will often go without breakfast, coming to school with an empty stomach.

After school when she returns home, there will sometimes be some food such as posho or beans prepared, but not every day. “Being hungry makes school quite difficult,” says Esther. “When I come to school sometimes I am so hungry by lunchtime that my head is spinning, and I feel completely powerless and out of control. I can’t concentrate”. Esther said that after lunch she feels much better and more in control, and is glad that whatever happens she knows that five days a week she will receive a meal.

Seeing her mother struggle for her education makes Esther want to study hard to ensure that she can have a better future, and be able to look after her mother, sister and brother. Esther wants to be a doctor or a midwife when she grows up.


The young people who live at Iona House, our children’s home in Romania, are growing up fast.

In recent years we have celebrated four weddings and have seen some of the orphans who were rescued from state hospitals over a decade ago move on to lead independent lives.

But the challenges they face remain considerable, whether living with HIV, coping with the mental scars of the past, or searching for employment in a tough economic climate. Some of the home’s residents have severe disabilities and will need care for the rest of their lives.

Fundraising News

While the majority of those who came to us in the early days are now young adults, Ibi, the home’s mother and manager, and her team, continue to provide the support, love and stability that they missed out on as young children.

The skills taught in Iona House’s craft workshop are helping those who are fit enough to find jobs, and the items made, from picture frames to gift cards, are being sold at local exhibitions to help generate an income.

There is plenty to look forward to this summer, including a holiday in the mountains organised by Mary’s Meals supporters Charlie and Cathy Marr, who have been regular visitors for many years, and for three young people, a visit to the UK. For others, there will be a bonus trip to the coast in Bulgaria - the first time that some of them will see the sea.

The house that will always be home

World Porridge Day 2011 preparations


Up, up and alongMary’s Meals supporters are covering long distances and scaling great heights to support our projects this summer.

A team of friends from Edinburgh will be putting their stamina to the test with a European running challenge through which they hope to raise enough money to build a kitchen at a school in Malawi. On September 5 Iain Weston, Ed Shepherd, Alasdair McQuat and Mike Paul will start their 131 mile journey from Brussels to Amsterdam, which translates into five marathons in five days. Details of their challenge are also online at www.justgiving.com/frombtoa

Closer to home, Gwyn Ashby has set herself a two-wheeled Scottish endurance test that will take her and her bike 578 miles from Scotland’s most southerly point, the Mull of Galloway, to its most northerly at Dunnet head. The mileage alone is staggering, and Scotland’s mountainous terrain means there will be plenty of uphill climbs - a total 28,000 ft of ascent. www.justgiving.com/Gwyn-Ashby

James Bruce, who embarked on an extremely long walk from Walsingham in England to Guadaloupe in Mexico earlier this year, recently reached Kazakhstan, where last we heard he was trying to obtain a visa for the next leg of his journey. James has been using social networking to keep friends posted on his progress. His twitter name is @onlyninesixty

We are full of admiration for everyone who has embarked on a feat of endurance, however large or small, in support of Mary’s Meals. We want to say thank you, and good luck, to everyone who is supporting Mary’s Meals by taking part in the Great Kindrochit Quadrathlon, in July, to Dave Astbury, running the British 10k London run, Michael Murray, who cycled the length of Britain in June, and Ruth Boddy, who completed what may have been the chilliest challenge, the Great North Swim on Lake Windermere.

If you are planning to take on the elements for Mary’s Meals, please let us know.

World Porridge Day was established as a celebration of a traditional dish, and as a chance to draw attention to the role that porridge plays at Mary’s Meals projects in Malawi, where a daily mug of maize-based ‘likuni phala’ is an incentive for children to go to school.

In 2010 we were thrilled that people from all over the world, from school pupils and community groups to university students, office staff and church congregations, chose to have fun and spread the word about Mary’s Meals.

World Porridge Day was a truly international occasion, with an internet link between pupils in Blantyre, Malawi and those at Holyrood School in Glasgow, and porridge parties in the United States, Bosnia, India and France. Representatives from Mary’s Meals international support groups joined celebrations at our headquarters at Craig Lodge.

There were large and small events across the UK too, from the World Porridge Making championships in Carrbridge in the Highlands, to breakfasts in London, Kent and Essex, and a porridge themed Sunday service in Oswaldtwistle in Lancashire.

World Porridge Day causes a stir

Last year’s World Porridge Day saw Mary’s Meals supporters everywhere getting their spurtles out and getting involved. Now the date for 2011’s event has been confirmed, we hope you will put it in your diaries and get ready to join us for a celebration that promises to be even bigger and better than last time around.

The scent of porridge could even be detected in the corridors of power, as both Scotland’s First Minister, in Edinburgh, and MPs in Westminster, including the Speaker of the House of Commons, took time out for a special breakfast.

‘ We hope that World Porridge Day will raise money to help us feed more hungry children’

This year, we are asking you to get involved, perhaps by hosting a porridge breakfast for friends at home or at school, or by baking flapjacks or another porridge-related treat to sell at work - its up to you how you take part, we love to hear about novel ideas as well.

We hope that World Porridge Day will raise money to help us feed more hungry children, and that it will also raise awareness about what we do and why.

Do let us know if you have a World Porridge Day activity planned, and send us the story and pictures afterwards, so we can share them in this newsletter. [email protected]


Calum’s shed, in Dalmally, is the headquarters of Mary’s Meals. The shed has won the ‘garden office’ category in this year’s Shed of the Year competition.

Thanks to votes from supporters, it beat over 10 other sheds to the title in the first round of the competition, which was decided by an online poll. Now Mary’s Meals is in with the chance of winning first prize in the final, judged by a panel of shed experts including TV presenter Sarah Beeny.

It costs Mary’s Meals an average of £9.40 to provide a meal a day in school for a hungry child, so the £1,000 first prize would be enough to support 106 children for a year. The prize also comes with a year’s supply of wood care products (useful for other buildings on the Mary’s Meals site) from the competition’s sponsor Cuprinol.

Calum’s shed has been at the heart of the charity’s work since it began. During the Balkan conflict, Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, Mary’s Meals’ founder, borrowed it from his father (Calum) and used it to store donations of blankets and medicines before he delivered them to victims in Bosnia. Since then it has been used as a children’s play room, craft workshop, office and meeting room and has hosted high profile

The backpack project has proved a popular challenge for supporters in Ireland, Croatia and Germany, who have been successfully collecting bags and filling them with school resources. Croatia and Germany hope to send containers direct to Mary’s Meals in Malawi shortly, while the backpacks from Ireland will join donations from the UK to be shipped from our warehouse in Glasgow.

Pupils at Ingrid Schuermann’s school in northern Germany have been doing good turns for their neighbours to raise money and are looking forward to the chance to taste likuni phala, the porridge that children eat at our projects in Malawi.

Medjugorje in Bosnia has been marking 30 years of apparitions and our café there continues to welcome visitors from around the world who want to learn about the charity’s work.

In New Jersey in the United States, a group from St Thomas the Apostle High School in Bloomfield have been fundraising to sponsor school feeding at Ulisa Primary, in Malawi. Magnus, Mary’s Meals founder, recently visited the parish to address the Spirit and Truth young adult group.

On the other side of America, Mike Miller, a student at Simpson University in California, produced Mary’s Meals T-shirts aimed at his trendy peers. The T-shirts, with the slogan ‘Got Food’ have been selling extremely well.

Our US website has just been re-launched at www.marysmealsusa.org. We hope to have new country-specific sites available for other groups soon.

Mary’s Meals has been appearing in the media around the world too. Milona, our Overseas Ambassador, introduced the charity’s work in the Italian magazine OGGI.

In FocusDonations are currently being collected for Croatia’s PROJECT RUKSAK and plans are for these backpacks to be shipped direct to Malawi

So far, there have been 1,300 backpacks collected from schools and Mary’s Meals Croatia hope to receive more when the schools return in September. A shipment of at least 4,000 backpacks to Malawi is planned in October.

Shed reaches national finals

The Argyll home of Mary’s Meals has

made it through to the finals of

this year’s ‘Shed of the Year’

competition.

visitors including Duncan Bannatyne and Gerard Butler.

“My dad’s shed has always had a special significance for me, and through the Shed of the Year vote I’ve discovered that the place where I played pool as a teenager means a lot to a lot of other people as well,” says Magnus.

“Mary’s Meals has had a remarkable journey, starting as a small aid organisation and growing to become a charity that helps than 500,000 children. Calum’s shed has been a part of that story from the beginning, and we hope it will continue to play a role for many years to come.” There are nine sheds in the competition final, including a pub shed, a museum and a shed shaped like a tardis. The winner will be announced during National Shed Week which starts on July 4.

Mary’s Meals has grown considerably in recent years and now has an office and warehouse in Glasgow and shops around Scotland , as well as supporters around the world. The corrugated tin building remains its international base.

International supporter newsIt has been a busy time for our overseas support groups, whose contribution to the overall work of Mary’s Meals continues to grow. Many are in the process of officially registering Mary’s Meals in their country, and we are looking forward to working with them in the months and years to come.

Renata Planinic from Mary’s Meals Croatia said: “The Backpack Project allows schools, organisations, groups and individuals to fill up an old school bag or backpack with basic school items such as notepads, pens and suitable school clothes and hygienic kit. “It is an extraordinary opportunity for children, parents and teachers to join forces and do a good deed for the poorest children of the world, which will bring them and all of us a great joy…. seize this opportunity!”

Mary’s Meals has already delivered over 229,000 backpacks to countries including Malawi, Liberia, Uganda and Romania. Mary’s Meals is still looking for volunteers to help with the running the project. Anyone who would be interested is asked to contact [email protected].


Mary’s Meals is a movement to set up school feeding projects in communities where poverty and hunger block children from gaining an education. This movement is administered by the charity Scottish International Relief (SIR).

SIR came into being during the Bosnian conflict in 1992. Two brothers, Magnus and Fergus MacFarlane-Barrow, were so moved by the scenes on TV that they decided to organize an appeal for blankets and food in their local area, Argyll, Scotland.

They quickly gathered a jeep load and joined one of the convoys leaving the UK and delivered the aid to Medjugorje in Bosnia, a place of international pilgrimage they had visited with their family yearspreviously.

Believing their good deed done they returned to Scotland expecting to resume their jobs as fish farmers. However they came home to discover the public had carried on donating aid in theirabsence filling their parents' garage with goods.

Magnus decided to give up his job for a year to drive the aid out for as long as the public kept donating. The public did not stop and it soon became necessary to set up a registered charity.

Our vision is that all those who have more than they need, share with those who lackeven the most basic

things, and thatevery child receives

one daily mealin their place of

education.

Marys Meals is administeredthrough Scottish International Relief

A company limited by guarantee.Coy No. SC265941

Registered Charity SCO22140Craig lodge, Dalmally, Argyll,

PA33 1AR Tel: +44 (0)1838200605Email: [email protected]

www.marysmeals.org

who are we?In case you are reading this without any prior knowledge of the charity and wonder who we are, here is a brief summary . . .

The charity began to work in Romania, building homes for abandoned children, and in Liberia, helping returning refugees by setting up mobile clinics, while continuing to deliver material aid to Croatia and Bosnia.

‘ This simple but effective idea has gathered momentum and today provides daily meals for over 500,000 of the world’s poorest children.’

In 2002 Magnus met a family in Malawi that ledto a whole new area of work. The mother was dying of AIDS and lying on the floor of her hut surrounded by her 6 young children. When Magnus asked her oldest son what he hoped for in life, his stark reply was, 'To have enough to eat and to go to school one day,"

This encounter prompted the campaign, Mary's Meals, that aims to help children like this by providing a meal a day in school. In this way the children are encouraged to gain the education that can liftthem out of poverty in later life.

This simple but effective idea has gathered momentum and today provides daily meals for over 500,000 of the world’s poorest children.

Our headquarters is still situated in the grounds of Craig Lodge, Argyll, but support groups are springing up around the world.

Mary’s Meals EXTRA June 2011 Page 18

marys meals extra issue 10 summer 2011

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