Video Speaker 30th July 2021 - Annette Davies from Mary's Meals

A no-frills charity with a simple idea that works: by providing one good meal in a place of learning, children are drawn where they can receive an education that could one day free them from poverty.

Annette outlined the history of the charity whose founder, during a visit to Malawi met a lady dying of AIDS surrounded by her six young children. When the eldest son was asked what he hoped for in life, he replied simply: “I want to have enough food to eat and to go to school one day.” The seed sown by that statement was enough to stimulate charitable activity to feed two hundred children by providing a kitchen at a place of education and funding locally sourced food cooked within the community.

300 million children go hungry each day around the world. 59 million have no access to education because of poverty, the need to beg or work the land, fend for domestic animals or for any of a multitude of reasons.

From that small beginning in Malawi, Mary's Meals now feeds 35% of Malawi’s primary schoolchildren and nearly 2 million children every day across 19 countries.  

The cost of building individual kitchens varies and is often met by specific fund-raising activities by Rotary Clubs and other charities. The food provided is a basic diet, sourced locally wherever possible and cooked by volunteers. Each child also receives a Mary's Meal mug or plate! As a small charity, Mary's Meals works with other charities to facilitate the setting up of the kitchens, the supply of water and local logistics, enabling it to focus on its aims whilst keeping administration at an absolute minimum. Albeit that it serves so many children and communities it still operates out of the shed in the founder’s parents’ garden!!   And whilst receiving some support from some “celebrities” it eschews costly fund-raising activities enabling it to continue operating in a low cost, straightforward manner. 93% of all donations are spent on charitable activities. This is all possible due to amazing volunteers and everyone’s little acts of love.

The focus remains on primary school aged children.  Providing food at the place of education reduces local hunger; improves school enrolment and attendance levels; improves levels of attainment and increases community support for education. And certainly, Annette’s visual aids showed food makes children happy!!

Profiles of children, having been able to receive initial schooling as food was made available to them, were shared underlining how young people progressed into secondary education, community leadership and medical roles.  

The COVID pandemic has impacted Mary's Meals operations as education facilities have closed and people movement massively restricted. Revised methods of working have been implemented imaginatively with local distribution centres set up with heads of household receiving daily food allowances -and a bar of soap. In crisis area, such as in Tigray, Ethiopia, and Haiti, Mary's Meals operate on a project basis alongside other charities to alleviate childhood hunger and maintain some level of education amongst the deprivation and suffering.

In the ensuing Q&A’s we learnt that there are now organisations supporting Mary's Meals in 15 countries and that the link with Rotary throughout the UK remains strong. Additionally, Annette told us that the backpack project has been restarted– the collection of preowned rucksacks, filled with basic school learning materials and providing them to school children in Malawi and Liberia.

Whilst Annette was not actively seeking donations at this meeting, she did say that anyone setting up direct debit donations by the end of August 2021 to the charity would have their donation trebled for 3 months by a group of anonymous donors.      

Annette promoted members and readers of this summary to access Mary's Meals web site at https://www.marysmeals.org.uk/. The site is extremely informative – on the charity’s history, its founder, children who have benefited from the meals and work being carried out in some of the world’s impoverished areas.  Ways in which donations can be made are also on the web site.