Mary's Meals reaches a 20 year milestone
In 2002, Mary’s Meals made a promise to the world’s most vulnerable children to provide nutritious daily meals in places of education.
20 years on, Mary’s Meals is fulfilling that promise to 2,279,941 children every school day whose guaranteed daily meal gives them the energy levels needed to concentrate and learn in class. We call these children ‘Generation Hope’ as we believe they can grow up well-nourished and educated, equipped with the skills to lift themselves and their communities out of poverty.
Throughout its history, Mary’s Meals has rooted itself in some of the world’s most hostile and challenging environments, where conflict, climate change, and food insecurity dictate everyday life and where the need is acute and urgent. In many of the countries where we serve daily meals, children are working in fields, begging on street corners, or scavenging just to survive, instead of sitting in a classroom.
Over the years, our work has shown that school attendance and participation in class increase in schools where Marys’ Meals are served and that children worry less about being hungry and rarely or never leave school early because of hunger. It’s a simple idea that works.
As Mary’s Meals marks its 20th anniversary year, the need to keep our promise to the children enrolled in our school feeding programmes and reach the next hungry child living in poverty grows ever stronger.