How Mary’s Meals reaches the most vulnerable children
We take a look at how Mary’s Meals rises to the challenge to deliver our school feeding programme to vulnerable children in some of the world’s most complex, and unexpected, locations
Making sure we reach the most vulnerable children
For more than two decades now, Mary’s Meals has been generating real and measurable change in some of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable communities.
Our nutritious meals are served to more than 2.4 million children every school day in 17 countries worldwide. No two contexts are the same, but the communities we work with are all carefully selected as places of great need, where factors such as extreme poverty, conflict, and climate-related issues drive up rates of child malnutrition and hinder access to education.
Haiti, Liberia and South Sudan are just a few of the countries where we navigate challenging environments to bring children the promise of a meal every school day. All too often, the meal children receive from Mary’s Meals at school is the only guaranteed food they will eat in a day, so our approach to school feeding is designed to ensure we can reach children in areas where our school meals can make the most difference.
Targeting vulnerable communities
We are guided by need and are committed to supporting children who live in some of the most challenging, unstable and food-insecure contexts in the world. While the idea of serving food in a place of education is simple, bringing much-needed school meals to some of the world’s most vulnerable children is a complex operation. Deciding which communities to work with involves many considerations and actions, so we have a robust process to guide the choices we make.
Co-existing with these meticulously planned operations is our willingness and ability to respond to the unequivocal need that is presented to us. And occasionally, situations arise that are purely fortuitous. During a trip to Malawi some years ago, Mary’s Meals founder Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow was invited by a local youth club to climb a large mountain – called Chaoni Hill – on Pentecost Sunday. After hours of climbing, they reached a village with a church where people of all different cultures and faiths were arriving to celebrate together. Word had spread about the arrival of Magnus and, as he was leaving the church, he was greeted by several hundred people on a football field, some of whom had travelled from the neighbouring mountain to attend. Members of the group explained that around 5,000 people were living in the surrounding villages and that more than 900 children attended the only school. As Magnus had seen so often on his travels, poverty and hunger were driving dropout rates; a class of more than 100 children had shrunk to just 13.
Magnus addressed the crowd of people, explaining about the long waiting lists for schools to join the Mary’s Meals feeding programme. He also questioned how it would be possible to transport the food up the mountain for the meals to be served as the nearest road was three miles away. Their immediate response was that they would carry the food from a village at the bottom of the mountain if Mary’s Meals could deliver it there for their children. Before long, the same determined people from the Chaoni community were doing just that; men and women working in partnership with Mary’s Meals, volunteering their time and carrying bags of grain up the mountain to cook and serve their children a vital meal every school day as they learn.
The integral role played by our partners
In countries such as India, Ecuador, Syria, Madagascar, and Yemen, our meals are served to children through our global network of in-country partners. These specialist organisations are attuned to the complexities of geography and political and cultural dynamics in their own locality. They share their experience, knowledge and relationships and provide access to infrastructure and staff, while working closely with us to ensure the programme is delivered in line with our approach and model.
Money for Madagascar is a charity that empowers children and families and improves educational outcomes in rural areas. With their support, our meals are reaching schoolchildren in the Itasy region and the capital city, Antananarivo. These children are particularly vulnerable as they face constant threats of extreme weather – cyclones, flooding and severe drought in the south – as well as not having enough food to eat.
Another of our partners in Madagascar, Grandir Dignement, works with us to reach extremely vulnerable children in detention centres. These children can be as young as eight years old, living in terrible conditions as they await trial. Often, they are from very poor backgrounds and are being detained for petty crimes like stealing food. Grandir Dignement has been teaching children in detention for many years but, before our partnership, their work was hindered by a lack of food for the children in the facilities.
Together, we are bringing hope to some of Madagascar’s most marginalised children – both in schools and detention centres – fuelling their learning and development in even the most trying environments.
Nourishing young minds in the most unexpected locations
When we think of ‘places of education’, we probably bring purpose-built schools to mind. However, in India, informal education centres exist all over the country, giving orphaned or abandoned lower caste children living in poverty an opportunity to learn and play safely.
In a village in Haryana (a North India state surrounding New Delhi) known as Slum Area Sector 7, hidden among a collection of houses made from plastic and cardboard, children gather under a tarpaulin sheet propped up on a barren patch of wasteland, learning the Hindi alphabet. Their eagerly anticipated meals are cooked by Mary’s Meals volunteers at a nearby orphanage and arrive in metal pots on the main road. The children greet the delivery of the food and return to the tent to eat.
In the countryside of Uttar Pradesh, children congregate at a centre operating under a thatched shelter joined to a house to learn and enjoy food from Mary’s Meals. When Magnus visited the site a few years ago, he was greeted by a man whose three daughters had attended the centre then moved onto mainstream schools nearby. Every school day, more than 71,000 children across schools and informal education centres in India receive Mary’s Meals through the work of our long-standing local partner, BREAD.
With generous support and dedication from people who share our vision, we will continue to journey together, bringing vital school meals to vulnerable children living in the some of the world’s poorest communities.