mary's meals extra issue 5

eexxttrraae-magazine for mary’s meals

supportersIssue no 5 - March 2010

TToopp eexxaamm rreessuullttss ffoorr MMaarryy’’ss MMeeaallss sscchhoooollss iinn KKeennyyaa

wweellccoommeeWelcome to the March issue of Mary’s Meals Extra, our quarterly e-bulletin. The Mary’s Meals Extra is designed for those of you who wantregular news updates from us and is aimed particularly at those whofundraise and spread the word about Mary’s Meals. We hope that thisis a useful resource you can draw on.

Feel free to reproduce parts of it for your own publications or to shareit with family, friends and colleagues. However you choose to use thepublication we hope that it supports you in all your endeavours forMary’s Meals. As always, we welcome your feedback and ideas onhow we could do things better.

IInn TThhiiss IIssssuuee -- eevveenn mmoorree cchhiillddrreenn ffeeddThis issue brings with it the good news that the number of childrenMary’s Meals is feeding has risen again, so that we are nowsupporting 398,865. We hope that before the next edition, we will beable to confirm that we are feeding over 400,000 children.

We are thrilled with this increase, particularly because its details showjust how well Mary’s Meals is working.

Some of the increased figures (in Liberia, for example, our project hasgrown to support another 9,000 children) demonstrate a plannedexpansion to new areas.

However, in many countries, such as Uganda and India, the growingnumbers reflect an increase in enrolment at schools where Mary’sMeals was already being provided.

At these schools, a meal a day has attracted more children - perhapschildren who wouldn’t otherwise go at all - to sign up to go to school.

The growth may be relatively small at this point, but it is tangible andconfirms our conviction that the Mary’s Meals approach is still theright one.

The next page is our Key Figures document, which should provide auseful reference. We have highlighted all the countries where anincrease has taken place.

Thank you for all you have done to make it possible.

RRuutthh BBllaacckk

mary’s meals extra e-magazine for supporters page 1

CCoonntteennttssKKeeyy ffiigguurreessPPrroojjeecctt nneewwssMMaarryy’’ss MMeeaallss UUKK nneewwssWWhhoo aarree wwee

KKeeyy FFiigguurreess

ALBANIA 577BOSNIA 50

BURMA/THAILAND 290HAITI 12428

INDIA 3163KENYA 9110

LIBERIA 24,000MALAWI 336,394

PHILIPPINES 1425ROMANIA 35SUDAN 2666

THAILAND 1205UGANDA 6712UKRAINE 520ZAMBIA 290

Global Total = 398,865

Number of children receiving a daily meal in their place of

education at March 2010

Total number of childrenreceiving a daily meal inschool = 398,865

Average cost of Mary’sMeals per child per year= £9 / €10 / $13.50

Cost of Mary’s Meals perchild, per year in Malawi= £6.15/€7.16/$10.10


PPrroojjeecctt NNeewwss


KKeennyyaa -- ““Many of the kids here come from orphan and very poor backgrounds ...it is a big

challenge for them to continue their studies.They have performed well.”


Pupils at Mary’s Meals primary schools in Kenya have achievedexcellent results in their national exams. Teachers reported highstandards all round, with Enchoro, a rural school in the west,showing the biggest improvement. It was named 2nd in its area. Ofthe final year pupils at Enchoro school, 35 achieved results thatenabled them to go on to the next stage of their education.

“Many of the kids here come from orphan and very poorbackgrounds,” says Charles Chuma, Mary’s Meals partner in Kenya,“it is a big challenge for them to continue their studies. They haveperformed well.”

Njenga Primary School remains among the most successful inNairobi, despite its location in one of the capital’s poorest slums. Its2,188 pupils received a daily meal in school last year even duringthe August school holidays, when the government asked charitieslike Mary’s Meals to extend their school feeding programmesbecause of the fear of famine.

Since Christmas, Mary’s Meals has started at a new school in Kisii,in south-western Kenya, where many of the pupils are AIDS orphans.Mary’s Meals has been provided at Riyabu Primary on a daily basissince Christmas and already, it is having positive effects.

“Since the beginning of the feeding programme, there is a greatimprovement in school attendance,” says Mr Chuma. “I met parentsfrom the school and they were very thankful for the Mary’s Mealsprogramme.” Primary education in Kenya is free, but notcompulsory, and about 15 per cent of primary age children miss outon school altogether. Mary’s Meals feeds 9,110 children in Kenya.

CCaassee ssttuuddyyFive year old Kennedy lives in the arid lands of Turkana in the northof Kenya. When both his parents died he and his sister began livingwith some step brothers and sisters. Kennedy looked after thegoats. His daily mission was to find them water (an increasinglydifficult task in rain starved Turkana). Sometimes he would go forseveral days without any food apart from wild berries.

In desperation he and his sister ran away to Naoros, 70km from theirhome. At first they had nowhere to sleep and nothing to eat until afamily took them in to work in their house.

The children heard about Naoros Nursery School and the free dailymeals on offer there, through Mary’s Meals. They enrolled as soonas they could. Now, for the first time in their lives, they areguaranteed a daily meal. For the first time they have an opportunityto learn. Kennedy says he wants one day to be a policeman.

Top exam results for Mary’s Meals schools in Kenya

Children are small enough to climb into wells to collect water for goats

SSpprriinngg ccrraafftt iinn RRoommaanniiaa


Above - Children’s crafts and picturesBelow - Launching red balloons in Targu Mures town centre onWorld Aids Day, December 1.

The young people who live at our homes in Targu Mures, Romaniahave earned a reputation for enterprise and creativity, and this wason display again at the start of 2010 as they prepared for a springthemed show of their work.

The March Flowers at Rhema Foundation exhibition was a chance forthe talented group to display hand-crafted pieces of jewellery, cards,pictures and stained glass, all made in the workshops on site withthe guidance of an art therapist.

Iona House, Bannatyne House and Rosi’s House children’s homeswere opened by Scottish International Relief to provide a loving,family-style home for children who had spent most of their early livesin appalling conditions in an infection hospital.

All of the children and young adults are HIV positive and many haveto contend with mental and physical handicaps. Art therapy is animportant and popular strand of the varied education programmewhich includes learning carpentry and IT skills.

After the exhibition, the crafts will be sold at a stall in the TarguMures shopping centre.

Mary’s Meals is moving into the secondphase of its disaster recovery work inHaiti, where we were providing a dailymeal for more than 12,000 childrenbefore the disaster on January 12.

Although several of our schools were destroyed, we havebeen able to resume some regular feeding at makeshiftclasses in Cite Soleil, a notorious slum in the capital Portau Prince. In Hinche, in central Haiti, the programme hasexpanded to provide a meal a day for a further 1,000children who fled to the area from Port au Prince.

Schools in Haiti were generally closed after the aftermathof the earthquake, but many of those supported by Mary’sMeals remained open because staff wanted children toreceive a guaranteed daily meal. "We are still working toprovide emergency relief, supporting daily drinking waterdeliveries and sourcing medical supplies for a clinic in CiteSoleil," said Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, who visited Haitiin January.

Now that this aid is in place, we are able to look to thelonger term too, restarting and developing our schoolfeeding programmes and in some cases extending thatsupport to vulnerable and elderly family members. Wecontinue to believe that education is the most effectiveway to tackle poverty. By providing a child with a meal aday, in school, we can give them essential nutrition and anincentive to attend lessons as well.“

In Cite Soleil, Mary’s Meals has provided employment forteams of local people salvaging materials from theearthquake rubble and rebuilding perimeter walls atschools that were damaged in the earthquake. Thesecurity these walls provide will enable more children toreceive a meal within them.

Our partners, Hands Together, aim to have all the CiteSoleil schools up and running in some form, with dailymeals being provided to all pupils, by March 30th. InHinche, displaced families are being given food, clothingand hygiene kits. Mary’s Meals helped to arrangehomeward transport for 500 people, many of whomevacuated the capital on government buses and becamestranded with no means to pay for travel to their hometowns.

NNeexxtt sstteeppss iinnHHaaiittii rreeccoovveerryy



Mary’s Meals has been able to begin making progress in Haitithanks to an overwhelming response to the launch of itsappeal. Supporters across the world have been busyorganising events to raise funds. The phone and the post boxin the Dalmally office have never been so busy. Thank you foryour hard work. IIff yyoouu aarree llooookkiinngg ffoorr rreessoouurrcceess ((ssuucchh aassppoosstteerrss aanndd lleeaafflleettss)) ffoorr aa ttaallkk oorr ffuunnddrraaiisseerr aabboouutt HHaaiittii,, yyoouuccaann ffiinndd tthheemm oonnlliinnee,, aalloonngg wwiitthh oouurr llaatteesstt uuppddaatteess,, aattwwwwww..mmaarryyssmmeeaallss..oorrgg//hhaaiittii__aappppeeaall..

The gallery below gives a flavour of some of your Haitiactivities so far. Please keep sending your pictures and wewill do our best to use them on our fundraising blog (whichalso has some handy fundraising tips)www.marysmeals.org/Fundraising.

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11.. KKiinnccaarrddiinnee && MMoonntteeiitthh:: Fundraising pupils at Kincardine and Monteith primary schoolmeet Stirling’s Provost Fergus Wood.

22.. CCeellttiicc ppaarrkk:: Young Celtic supporters visited Celtic Park to present Mary’s Mealsvolunteer John Thompson with a cheque from the Celtic Trust. The children were alsolucky enough to visit the players’ dressing rooms and see shirts ready for the next game.

33.. CCoorrppuuss CChhrriissttii HHiigghh SScchhooooll:: Schools across Wales have been busy fundraising. Pupilsat Corpus Christi High School in Cardiff are pictured with their collecting buckets.

44.. HHuurrsstt GGrreeeenn CChhuurrcchh in Lancashire raised more than £2,000 for Haiti and still foundtime to perform a specially written song about the backpack project.

5. IInnddiiaann CCoommmmuunniittyy CCeennttrree SSttiirrlliinngg:: Members of the Indian Community Centre in Stirlingraised money through a raffle.

66.. OObbaann AArrtt SSaallee:: A little visitor chooses his favourite exhibits at the Art for Haiti sale, atRegents Hotel Oban on Saturday, February 27.

77.. PPuuppiillss aatt KKiinngguussssiiee HHiigghh SScchhooooll chose their own theme for a dressing up day. Can you work out what it was?

88.. NNeewwttoonn MMeeaarrnnss FFaasshhiioonn:: Models display their stylish outfits at the Fairtrade FashionFever fundraiser at Newton Mearns Baptist Church.

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AA lleetttteerr ffrroomm MMaallaawwii


JJaavvaaiidd LLaattiiff,, MMaarryy’’ss MMeeaallss ffiinnaanncciiaall aaddmmiinniissttrraattoorr,, iisswwoorrkkiinngg iinn MMaallaawwii tthhiiss mmoonntthh.. HHee sseenntt tthhee ffoolllloowwiinnggee--mmaaiill wwiitthh hhiiss tthhoouugghhttss oonn hhiiss ffiirrsstt ffeeww ddaayyss tthheerree..

Hello, The start of last week was taken up mostly with travellingand meetings. Thursday and Friday were just fantastic – I visitedseveral of the schools around Blantyre area. It certainly is awonderful experience seeing the end product of our work firsthand – hundreds of children with the plastic cup full of LikuniPhala. (I did try it and tasted good!)

The visit to an under 6 centre was especially moving. The childrenwere so eager to give me a display of them counting up to 20,reciting the alphabet and singing songs – they all looked healthyand happy. I know many of them were orphans. It was a trulyemotional experience.

This week has been back to normal – working in Mary’s MealsMalawi Head Office in Blantyre. The office here is really nice.Everyone has been so welcoming. There is a really good team outhere. Today is t-shirt Friday – we all have our Mary’s Meals t-shirtson. Only downside has been the weather. It may be warm butthere has been a LOT of rain. Still, better than being snowed in!

All the best - Javaid

Online and overseasWhen a Mary’s Meals staff-member or volunteer is overseas foran extended period, we ask them to keep a blog to share theirexperiences. We have three correspondents at the moment, HazelBeevers and Billy McLennan in Uganda and Emma Turner inLiberia. Their blogs are a personal reflection on what they haveseen and done and contain the latest news from the projects, plussome great photos.

Liberia http://marysmealsinliberia.wordpress.com/ Uganda http://marysmealsuganda.wordpress.com/

Mary’s Meals T-shirts are beginning to arrive at our overseasprojects. Click here for a picture story from Gebel Awlia farm inKhartoum, Sudan:

http://www.marysmeals.org/soundslides/marysmeals_khartoum

_2010/

mmaarryy’’ss mmeeaallss UUKK nneewwssMMaatteerriiaall AAiidd UUppddaatteeThe material aid warehouse had a lucky escape during thewinter’s big freeze. Although a pipe burst and the floor flooded,none of the donations stored in the warehouse was damaged,which was a great relief. A big clean-up took place, with a hugeeffort from volunteers, and now that the repairs are done,Charlotte, our warehouse manager, has been able to move backto her office.

Our first container of 2010, containing backpacks, bikes andschool resources, left for Malawi at the end of February. Before itsdeparture, the container was blessed by Fr Jim Morris, from StGabriel’s Church, View Park.

We want to thank everyone who has donated bedding andpyjamas following Father Silvester’s appeal for these for Uganda.The container with these items has now been sent and we are notrequesting more at the moment. However, we continue towelcome donations of books, blackboards and school resourcesfor all of our overseas projects.

FFuunnddrraaiissiinngg DDiiaarryy DDaatteessYou can keep track of up-coming Mary’s Meals events through ourcalendar, online at www.marysmeals.org/Fundraising. If you areorganising an event and would like to list it, you can send detailsthrough the website, or e-mail [email protected].

Upcoming events include a gig from Glasgow bands, Findo Gask,French Wives and Paper Planes, at the Captain’s Rest in Glasgowon Thursday March 18 (organised by our Glasgow universityfundraiser Fiona Vallance). A fashion show in Oban on April 25has a new twist – it will be a chance to see outfits from the Mary’sMeals shop.

CChhuurrcchh ooff SSccoottllaanndd SSppeeaakkeerrssWe have received several requests for speakers to visit Church ofScotland parishes in the Glasgow area. If you can spare a fewhours, usually on Sundays, to talk to congregations about ourwork, please get in touch at [email protected]. Training andresources will be provided. Thank you.

IInnffoo ffoorr sscchhoooollssOur school resources page is packed with tools and ideas forteachers who would like their classes to become involved withMary’s Meals, from lesson plans to quick colouring activities, withmore due to be added shortly.

http://www.marysmeals.org/Schools_Club_Resources.html.

Our primary and secondary schools page also has details of awriting competition, the prize for which is a trip to visit a nationalnewspaper. Deadline March 31.


Fundraising Events Calendar

Schools & Clubs Resources


JJuusstt oonnee mmoorree mmiillee……

Marathon season is just around the corner, with training wellunder way for the brave souls who have committedthemselves to cover more than 26 miles for Mary’s Meals.

We want to say a big thank you to all the dedicated runners,walkers and cyclists out there, including Father Paul Turner,running the Brighton marathon, Alison Reutter, running theParis marathon and John McCruden, who will be running theGreat Wall of China marathon. Edinburgh students did aterrific job pounding pavements for Mary’s Meals at theMeadows Marathon earlier this month

A special mention to an ambitious band of cyclists, whosomehow manage to find time for social networking as well.Christine and Peter Helliwell are starting their London toSydney bike ride in April. You can follow them at:http://londontosydneybybike.wordpress.com.

David Forrester, Phil Hedley, Gary Hitchen and Geoff Burnsare cycling from Lands End to John O’Groats - and tweetingabout it. http://twitter.com/End2End2010

AA ccoommpplliimmeennttMary’s Meals has been shortlisted as Britain’s MostInnovative Charity, in the Third Sector magazine awards.

Being considered for awards can be a tricky process, withlots of forms to fill in and evidence to present, but in thiscase, the nomination was a surprise, so we can only assumethat a supporter put our name forward. If it was you, thankyou.

There are four other charities in contention for the awardand the winners will be announced at an award ceremony onin March.

AA mmeessssaaggee ffrroomm oouurr UUSS tteeaamm

Thanks to all the generous support we received, Mary’sMeals USA’s second medical supply mission to Haiti lastmonth was a success! A corporate jet was donated for thepurpose and our challenge was to gather and send as manymeds as possible. We got lots of help with coordinating thedelivery process between the pharmacies where we weregetting the medicines and the truck rental company wherewe got the truck to move the meds. In the end the totalcargo was about 2,000 lbs in about 80 boxes (we havedeveloped into expert package handlers!).

After surviving the torrential rains, we met the plane at thePalm Beach International Airport. 3 ½ hours later afterstuffing every inch, nook and cranny with medicines, we leftto return home exhausted! The Haiti appeal has seen a bigincrease in support for Mary's Meals in the US and manymore people are now expressing an interest in our work.Last week we enjoyed the company of Magnus and Milonaas they visited us to speak at a series of Mary's Meals eventswe had organised in New York, Palm Beach and Miami. Nodoubt things will get busier yet.

Christine and Peter Helliwell

http://twitter.com/End2End2010

Edinburgh students at the Meadows Marathon

wwhhoo aarree wwee??IInn ccaassee yyoouu aarree rreeaaddiinngg tthhiiss wwiitthhoouutt aannyy pprriioorr kknnoowwlleeddggeeooff tthhee cchhaarriittyy aanndd wwoonnddeerr wwhhoo wwee aarree,, hheerree iiss aa bbrriieeffssuummmmaarryy .. .. ..

Mary’s Meals is a movement to set up school feeding projects incommunities where poverty and hunger block children from gainingan education. This movement is administered by the charity ScottishInternational Relief (SIR). SIR came into being during the Bosnianconflict in 1992. Two brothers, Magnus and Fergus MacFarlane-Barrow, were so moved by the scenes on TV that they decided toorganize an appeal for blankets and food in their local area, Argyll, Scotland.

They quickly gathered a jeep load and joined one of the convoysleaving the UK and delivered the aid to Medjugorje in Bosnia, a placeof international pilgrimage they had visited with their family yearspreviously. Believing their good deed done they returned to Scotlandexpecting to resume their jobs as fish farmers. However they camehome to discover the public had carried on donating aid in theirabsence filling their parents' garage with goods. Magnus decided togive up his job for a year to drive the aid out for as long as the publickept donating. The public did not stop and it soon became necessaryto set up a registered charity.

The charity began to work in Romania, building homes forabandoned children, and in Liberia, helping returning refugees bysetting up mobile clinics, while continuing to deliver material aid toCroatia and Bosnia. In 2002 Magnus met a family in Malawi that ledto a whole new area of work. The mother was dying of AIDS and lyingon the floor of her hut surrounded by her 6 young children

When Magnus asked her oldest son what he hoped for in life, hisstark reply was, 'To have enough to eat and to go to school one day,"This encounter prompted the campaign, Mary's Meals, that aims tohelp children like this by providing a meal a day in school. In thisway 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 todayprovides daily meals for over 390,000 of the world’s poorestchildren. Our headquarters is still situated in the grounds of CraigLodge, Argyll, but support groups are springing up around the world.

Mary’s Meals HQ Craig Lodge, DalmallyIn Scotland


oouurr vviissiioonnIs that all those who have more than

they need, share with those who lack even the most basic things, and that

every child receives one daily meal in their place of education

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mary's meals extra issue 5

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