Mary’s Meals already feeds 3 million children

The beneficial school food organization Mary’s Meals Celebrate an important milestone: there are already more than 3 million children in need to those who help every day.

This result is due to an extraordinary increase of around 800,000 children since the beginning of 2024, the organization indicates In a statement.

For children living in areas affected by climate change, acute food insecurity or sequelae of conflicts, the promise of receiving a meal in an educational center can make the difference between attending school or staying at home.

There are currently 71 million children of primary age outside school, a figure that exceeds the total number of children enrolled in primary education in developed countries in Europe, the United States and Canada.

In this context, Mary’s Meals underlines the results of the investigations that show that effective school food constitutes a powerful incentive to attend.

A gift for the Virgin Mary on her birthday

The founder and executive director of Mary’s Meals, Magnus Macfarlane-Barrow, said that they have chosen on September 8 to “celebrate that we feed more than 3 million children every school day because this is the day we celebrate the birthday of the Virgin Mary. So, on this day, we return to her all this work. Mary’s Meals is his is his.

“Despite this great figure of 3 million, for me Mary’s Meals is still something very simple, something small in which each of us can participate. Each can feed at least a child. We do not always have to think about the big numbers: we prefer to think about a child at the same time. Each of them has a name, each one is loved by God,” added Macfarlane-Barrow.

This milestone, according to the statement, occurs after a great expansion of the Mary’s Meals school feeding programs in nine countries, with hundreds of thousands of children incorporated into a period of 18 months, including Malawi, Haiti, Zambia, Zimbabue, South Sudan and Ethiopia.

In the Ethiopian region of Tigray, devastated by the war, the organization has increased its scope by more than 700%, from some 30,000 children in early 2024 to more than 245,000 today. This involves transforming nutritional support for children who have supported years of conflict, suffering and interruptions in their education.

In Malawi and Zambia, two of the oldest programs in the organization have also grown significantly, reaching more than 400,000 additional children and reaching more than 1,315,000 children in Malawi and more than 605,000 in Zambia.

All this at a time when the communities of both countries suffer the effects of drought, floods and other extreme meteorological phenomena, in addition to economic challenges. In Haiti, in the midst of violence and political instability, Mary’s Meals has achieved, together with his local partners, to increase more than 196,000 children benefited by their programs, so necessary in the region.

To mark this historical moment in the fight against children’s hunger, Mary’s Meals calls for global support for their school feeding programs aimed at children living in areas of great need and difficult access.

With more than a quarter of the children in the world facing severe food poverty in early childhood (27%), which is equivalent to more than 181 million children under five, the need for constant school food programs has never been so urgent, underlines the beneficial organization.

Dozens of millions of children are still hungry

“This achievement is less a celebration than a call to action. We invite every person of goodwill to join the Mary’s Meals movement so that our vision – which every child in the world receives a daily meal in their place of education – can come true,” said its founder.

Although Macfarlane-Barrow celebrates this figure, he regrets that “the sad reality is that dozens of millions of children are still hungry and without access to school.”

“Today, in a world in which we produce enough food for everyone, thousands of children will die for hunger related causes. And, nevertheless, Mary’s Meals costs 14 cents to offer a meal, and just $ 25 feed a child during a whole school year,” he said.

For Mary’s Meals, this growth is “a testimony of the number of people who believe in their vision – which each child receives a meal at school – and who share their time and resources to make this goal come true.”