Mary’s Meals changing world one spoonful at a time

A meal break from Marys Meals at a school in Bomi County. Picture: Esme Allen

A BOY walks along the edge of one of the few tarmac-surfaced roads in Liberia, West Africa; tree branches balanced on his head, he is carrying a hoe.

He looks like he should be in primary one, but he’s not at school. He’s working, like the 60 per cent of the children that are not attending school in this country, according to Unesco.

Even president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf recently branded her country’s education system “a mess” and vowed reforms after all 25,000 high school students sitting state university entrance exams in August failed.

During the country’s civil war that raged between 1989 and 2003 and killed more than 250,000 people, the education system ground to a halt and, ten years on, it is still struggling.

One way of getting children into education, and dealing with poverty and hunger at the same time, is by feeding them in schools. Scottish-based charity Mary’s Meals is doing exactly that, delivering dinners to 113,500 children in Liberia every day, and to 822,142 children in 16 countries.

This year’s Scotsman and Scotland on Sunday Christmas appeal is in support of Mary’s Meals.

Above that little boy’s head as he pads along the hard shoulder is another telling sign of what it means to be a child in Liberia today. A little girl is pictured with the slogan: “Don’t do your man and woman business with me. I am a child.”

It’s an indication of how prevalent child abuse is here. The war might have ended, but a whole generation was brutalised.

During the war, 75 per cent of women were raped, according to a United Nations survey, and it is still the most reported crime, with the majority of victims aged 10 to 19. A generation of Liberians was left with a legacy of trauma and only now are these scars beginning to heal.

“Schools are safe environments compared to what the child might otherwise have to deal with,” says Mary’s Meals country director Chris MacLullich.

“Child labour is rife, as is gender-based violence, and child abuse is common. It’s much safer to be in school than out in the bush where children could be raped or forced to work.”

Schools are also a place for children to have a daily meal. In Liberia, it only costs £20 a year to feed each child a daily meal, while Mary’s Meals’ global average cost of feeding a child is £10.70.

The charity was started by former fish farmer Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow from his home in Argyll in 1992, when he saw television footage of the war in Bosnia and decided to drive vans filled with food and blankets to help.

The organisation grew rapidly from there and, still based in Dalmally, Mary’s Meals now raises £10 million a year, £1.7m of this being spent in Liberia. But it feeds children in Africa, Asia, eastern Europe, the Caribbean and South America.

Last year, one of the charity’s young supporters, Martha Payne, of Lochgilphead in Argyll & Bute, found herself the centre of attention after using her blog to rate her school meals for tastiness and nutrition.

When her school asked her to stop, Martha found herself with heavyweight culinary supporters like Nick Nairn. The school relented and the nine-year old’s blog became a global hit, providing a focus for a fundraising effort that has passed £100,000.

Mary’s Meals honoured Martha with a kitchen in her name at a Malawi project.

Siatta, aged 14 and a pupil at a school in Senii in Grand Cape Mount County, western Liberia, backs the Mary’s Meals approach.

“It makes me want to come to school more because I like the rice and beans. Before they came here, I ate nothing all day and it makes it hard to think. When I leave school I want to work for Mary’s Meals as a monitor, riding around to different schools on a motorbike, checking the feeding. I want to pay them back.”

Mr MacLullich adds: “Donations of any size will transform the life of a child. What might seem like a small thing can make a huge difference to one child.”

HOW YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE

You can donate by sending a cheque made payable to “Mary’s Meals” or a postal order to: Mary’s Meals, Craig Lodge, Dalmally, Argyll, PA33 1AR.

To donate by phone, call 0800 698 1212. To donate by text, text MMSA13 and the amount you’d like to donate to 70070. For example, to donate £5, text MMSA13 5 to 70070. You can donate £1, £2, £3, £4, £5 and £10, to a maximum of £30 per month.

Donations are added to your phone bill or deducted from your pay-as-you-go credit. To claim Gift Aid, follow the instructions in the reply text. Please quote The Scotsman when making any donation.

To give online go to www.marysmeals.org.uk