How Mary's Meals chooses where to feed
Where is the greatest need? The considerations and decisions we make before expanding into a new country
Have you ever wondered how Mary’s Meals chooses the countries, schools and partners for our school feeding programme? With so many children across the world in need of daily meals in school, how do our teams make these important decisions?
We take a look at our newest school feeding programme, in Mozambique, and learn more about some of the considerations and decisions behind Mary’s Meals working in a new country.
1. Why Mozambique? How we choose where to work
When it comes to where we choose to expand our programme, there are several factors we need to consider, including need, partnership, and opportunity. However, need – to what extent children in this place are in need of school feeding – is always our first consideration.
We look at various indicators of hunger, food insecurity, and access to primary education, as well as any existing school feeding in the area. We then look at our ability to reach children in these locations, which includes operational questions, as well as the relationships and networks we have at local and national level.
We chose Mozambique – and the Mabalane District area in particular – because it has very high need yet low school feeding coverage. It is also in a region of the world where Mary’s Meals has great experience, strong relationships, and high capacity to implement school feeding since we already work in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe, countries close to Mozambique.
With extreme weather and climate-related challenges, the region can be prone to a catastrophic mix of drought and flooding. One example of this is Cyclone Freddie, which caused major problems in Mozambique in 2023. The volatile climate makes schools increasingly vulnerable and even more difficult to access. Our determination to reach the most vulnerable children who might otherwise be forgotten meant Mabalane District made sense for a Mary’s Meals expansion.
2. How we decide which schools to target
We take a clustered approach to our feeding and include all schools that demonstrate need within an area, to guard against migration between schools (children moving between schools where one has a feeding programme and another does not).
In our new Mozambique programme, our local partner used our need assessment tools to ensure effective targeting of schools from the start. Sadly, food insecurity is a huge problem in the region and we found a universal need for daily meals across schools in the area.
3. How we choose our partners
Partnerships start in a number of different ways; sometimes through a mutual contact or an appropriate organisation approaching us directly. In other cases, when we know we are interested in working in a location, we scan the region and seek out organisations operating locally to understand if they could be a good fit.
In the latter case – as was true for Mozambique – there’s a lot of desk-based work that's done initially to identify possible partners in a region. During this process, we consider: have they previously done school feeding; does their approach match our values; what areas do they open up for us to work in; are they operating in an area of high need?
Then comes the due diligence process. We ask them questions about their other operations, safeguarding policies, and lots of different technical and legal aspects. A lot of those early discussions are trying to get a feel for how they align with our values, especially in terms of a low-cost approach.
Once we have identified a new partner and everyone has agreed to work together, we then collaborate with them on designing the programme that will be most effective in their context. The partner provides that local expertise, while Mary’s Meals brings decades of school feeding experience to the table.
After the basic programme is designed, the partner comes up with options and makes local choices. In Mozambique for example, we co-designed how the logistics would work for the schools, and then our new colleagues came up with the plan for local suppliers and implementation. Staffing needs are decided with the partner and then they do the local hiring.
We looked at various potential partners in Mozambique and are delighted to be working with a small organisation called Mozambique School Lunch Initiative (MSLI). Being attuned to the complexities of geography and political and cultural dynamics in the region, MSLI is helping us to work in challenging contexts we might otherwise be unable to access. Our values are strongly aligned and MSLI has great capability for implementing our programme. Through this new partnership, our school meals are already being served to more than 5,000 children since the programme started in June.
4. Why the community is vital
Community engagement from the onset is critical for school feeding success, so we do include that in our scoping of schools (alongside need considerations), to ensure that we are maximising the potential for programme success alongside committed communities.
We rely on the local network and expertise of our partner to effectively engage community members from the very beginning, and to flag any issues as they come up. One of the reasons we decided to work with MSLI was their strong focus on community engagement in their other projects and programmes.
As you can see, a lot has already gone into Mary’s Meals’ journey in Mozambique, yet this is just the beginning. In time, we hope to reach more children here and potentially expand into other areas of the country as funds allow.
A community leader in Kokwe told us: “This programme couldn’t have come at a better time. There is nothing in the fields, and with the lean season upon us, I don’t know what would have happened.”
The feedback we hear from communities reminds us of the great joy that comes out of our mission, but also the great need for our programme. Many of the schools we are reaching in Mozambique have never had a school feeding programme before. With your support, we will continue to provide nutritious meals for thousands of schoolchildren in the Mabalane District, providing hope for vulnerable families at a critical time.
You can find out more about our work in Mozambique and how you can support us, here.
