Our pledge: Every child deserves an education and enough food to eat
Sign the pledge to show that you believe in this too.
This June, as we approached the General Election, we asked our supporters to sign a pledge, a pledge based on our core belief that every child deserves an education and enough food to eat.
You pledged to stand for the millions of children all over the world who are missing out on their education because of hunger, in the belief that here, in the UK, we should help these children whenever and however we can.
Together, we called on the next government to make this a priority, and on the back of your incredible support, we have since sent the following letter to the newly elected Minister of State for Development.
While we understand there will be many competing priorities for your time, we wish to highlight the importance and long-lasting impact of a very simple solution to the growing problem of childhood hunger and malnutrition.
Our work contributes directly to Sustainable Development Goals 2 (zero hunger) and 4 (quality education) and we have been alarmed to see global progress on sustainable development goal 2 going backwards since the Covid-19 pandemic and its ramifications.
Mary’s Meals serves school meals to more than 2.4 million children across the world and the UK government’s funding has helped the charity to reach tens of thousands of these children in Malawi and Zambia in the past, and currently in Liberia. The promise of a daily meal encourages these desperately hungry children into the classroom where an education can be their ladder out of poverty and the key to their dreams of a more prosperous future for them, their families and their communities.
Since the 1990s, many developing countries have made primary education free of charge, and yet there are still millions of children who are not attending school. Latest UN statistics indicate there are 67 million children of primary school age who are out of school, while 200 million children’s lives at risk because they are malnourished.
One of the key barriers to education is hunger. A hungry child is more likely to drop out of school because they need to look for food, and is less likely to be able to concentrate in class even when they do attend. Providing a meal in school is a key driver of improved attendance, as our recent impact reporting shows.
We currently work in 17 of the world’s poorest countries, including Ethiopia, where many people fear an impending famine that could be on a par with or worse than the infamous famine of the mid-1980s. In response, Mary’s Meals, working alongside a trusted local partner, has recently expanded its school feeding programme. We are now providing around 114,000 hungry children with a nutritious meal every school day in the Tigray region, ensuring they have much-needed food and boosting their chances of engaging with education again.
Our rigorous impact reporting shows our school feeding programmes bring profound and positive change over a sustained period. In Liberia, Kenya and Zimbabwe, the number of children that left school early due to hunger at least once a week decreased by at least 81% because of our school meals. This highlights the value in funding school feeding programmes, which can ultimately help to create stronger and more stable communities over the long term, which is vital during a period of great global instability and the reversal of progress we have seen on global hunger.
In recent years we have seen cuts to the international aid budget, from 0.7% to 0.5% of GDP as a ‘temporary measure’. We acknowledge the reasons for this, given the cost of living crisis here in the UK but we must remember that charity cannot remain only at home. We have a duty to our brothers and sisters in some of the world’s poorest countries to give what we can and extend our generosity beyond the UK’s borders.
We hope that you will keep this simple solution in mind as you become familiar with your new role.
If you have not already done so, we ask - that if you agree that every child around the world deserves an education and enough food to eat - you sign the pledge too. Please also share our pledge with friends, family, colleagues and others who you think may share the same passion for our mission. Together, we will strive to stop child hunger.