Mary’s Meals is Changing The Future For Girls Around the World

Girls living in the world’s poorest countries are on the path to success thanks to the promise of a daily school meal

International school feeding charity Mary’s Meals is raising awareness of the importance of getting girls into education and providing them with opportunities they otherwise may not have had.

With the belief that all children deserve the right to an education, Mary’s Meals aims to encourage children into the classroom with the promise of a daily school meal. However, in many of the countries where the charity works, girls are less likely to be prioritised for education than their male peers. Instead, girls are taken out of school to become caregivers for their family, work, or even sometimes forced into an early marriage.

Girls make up 50% of the children across the Mary’s Meals global programme and it is vital to continue attracting girls into school so they can one day grow up, well-nourished and well-educated, to become the women who can provide their community with a ladder out of poverty.

For 11-year-old Mantasha from India, the Mary’s Meals school feeding programme is paving the way to a brighter future.

After sadly losing her mother to tuberculosis when she was just six years old and her father also contracting the same disease leaving him disabled and unable to work, Mantasha and her family moved to Delhi to live with her aunt as her father hoped she could help to support his children.

Mantasha has two older sisters who both work in a garment factory to support the family. Her two sisters often work late hours meaning Mantasha doesn’t see them very much. However without their support, there would be no food at home.

Unable to enrol at a government school because her family had no internal immigration papers, Mantasha attends an informal school called Gyaan Sarovar, located in the slum area where the family live. Receiving a daily serving of Mary’s Meals at school, Mantasha struggled to eat good portions of food at the beginning. She says:

I could only eat small portions at first. But then I started to see the value of having nutrition and I could see the difference it was making for me in class.

Determined to make the most of her time at school, Mantasha has set her sights on empowering the next generation of women. The 11-year-old says: “Only after I came to school did I start to feel hope that I could be educated. I want to be a teacher and give the same hope to other children. My dream is to build a school and then teach there.”

By donating time, money, skills or prayers, people can help Mary’s Meals reach more girls like Mantasha around the world.

A very special way to support the charity’s work this year is by setting up a regular gift to Mary’s Meals and becoming a Promise Pledger. Promise Pledgers is a special community of people who simply can’t accept that millions of children around the world should go hungry.

Any new regular gift set up in 2024 will be doubled for the first two payments, up to a value of £250,000, thanks to a generous donor. And for those who are already part of the Promise Pledgers community and choose to increase their regular gift in 2024, the increase will be doubled for the first two payments at the new rate.

The certainty of regular gifts gives Mary’s Meals the confidence to plan for the future, while enabling the charity to keep its promise to the millions of children it serves with a nutritious meal every school day.

It costs just £19.15 to feed a hungry child for a whole school year with Mary’s Meals.

Fran Lawson, Mary’s Meals Supporter Engagement Officer for the North of England, says:

Through the little acts of love that people do for Mary’s Meals we can ensure that more girls like Mantasha lead a better life.

There are currently 129 million girls out of education around the world, but there are ways in which people can support our work to transform their lives – either through joining us in asking for God’s continued blessings on our work, volunteering, or giving their support, if they can, by joining our Promise Pledgers community.

Fran continues:

By setting up a new regular gift in 2024, supporters’ generosity will go twice as far which means girls living in the 17 countries where we work will have a greater opportunity at life and a chance to dream.

To find out more about Mary’s Meals, or to set up a regular gift, visit www.marysmeals.org.uk/regular-giving

For more information on how to become a Mary’s Meals church representative or request a talk from Mary’s Meals at your parish, please email Fran Lawson at fran.lawson@marysmeals.org or visit marysmeals.org.uk/get-involved/volunteer