Mary’s Meals will reach 12,796 more chronically hungry children with a life-changing meal every day after a donation from People's Postcode Lottery
A charity has received a major boost as it bids to fight hunger across the world.
Mary’s Meals will reach 12,796 more chronically hungry children with a life-changing meal every school day thanks to funding raised from players of People’s Postcode Lottery.
The charity has been awarded £500,000 to help provide more school meals in Africa – attracting impoverished children to the classroom, filling their empty stomachs and giving them the energy to learn.
A significant part of the funding will also be used to support the growth of the charity’s work, including delivering key projects in organisational and staff development.
Mary’s Meals feeds more than 1.5 million children in 18 countries around the world every school day.
The latest award raised from players of People’s Postcode Lottery will support its school feeding projects in Benin, Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, South Sudan, Uganda and Zambia.
The news was welcomed by local communities and the Mary’s Meals team in Zambia, where an additional 1,597 hungry children across the Eastern Province of the country will receive a daily meal thanks to the funding boost.
Mathias Zimba, Mary's Meals’ head of programmes in Zambia, said: “I would like to thank players of People’s Postcode Lottery for their support for Mary’s Meals in Zambia, which ensures we are able to feed more children with a daily meal in school.”
Daniel Adams, UK executive director of Mary's Meals, added: “Through the generosity of players of People’s Postcode Lottery, and the shared belief that we can reach more hungry children, this latest support means that 12,796 more children in Africa will eat a meal in school today.
“Children who will receive Mary’s Meals through this funding can grow up – better nourished and better educated – to become the men and women who will lift their communities out of poverty and end their reliance on aid.”
Players of People’s Postcode Lottery have raised more than £1.7 million to date for Mary’s Meals through the Postcode African Trust.
The work of Mary’s Meals began in 2002 by feeding 200 children in Malawi, and it now reaches more than 1.5 million children every day in some of the world’s poorest countries including Haiti, South Sudan and Syria.
Research shows that in schools where children receive Mary’s Meals, enrolment increases, attendance improves, drop-out rates fall, and children are happier, healthier and do better in class.
