Mary’s Meals began working in the Philippines in 2006.  We provide meals to impoverished school pupils and to children living or working on the streets of Dumaguete City.  We also provide feeding to a community on the outskirts of the city.

School Feeding
Mary’s Meals provides daily meals in 3 schools for children living in a shanty town area of Dumaguete City.

Street Children Outreach
Three times a week the Mary’s Meals volunteers set up tables at the road side and serve up hot food to children who work as street vendors or beggars on the city streets.  For many, home, is somewhere outside the city and too distant to return to each evening.  They are vulnerable to exploitation and are often hungry and lonely.  As well as the food the children receive friendship and help.  The volunteers often distribute school supplies to encourage the children to attend school.

Community Support
We provide food to families who were displaced by war and now struggle to earn a living from quarrying stone.  Many of the children’s mothers leave to find work in the city.  Mary’s Meals volunteers are developing a feeding project and investigating other ways they might be able to help such as setting up gardening projects.

“My gratitude is from this earth to the heavens for Mary’s Meals - Now you do not see street children eating from garbage bins.”

 

PHILIPPINES FACTS AND FIGURES
Population - 92 million
% population that is undernourished - 22
% population living below poverty line - 30
Infant Mortality Rate per 1000 live birth - 20.56
Primary Enrolment % - 91
Survival to last grade of Primary of those enrolled % 70

Philippines is an archipelago in south-eastern Asia between the Philippine Sea and the South China Sea, east of Vietnam.  It is made up of more than 7,000 islands.  It is often subject to typhoons and earthquakes and has 20 active volcanoes.  There is ongoing fighting between rebels in the southern state of Mindanao and the government.  This has claimed over 120,000 lives.  The Philippines was one of the region’s best performing economies but it has a large national debt and millions live in poverty.