This year, the Junior School are raising funds through Mary’s Meals to support the pupils at Bondo School in Malawi for an entire year. Mary’s Meals is a global movement which aims to provide children living in poverty one daily meal in their place of education.

Bondo school is a mixed primary school in the Blantyre district in the south of Malawi, with a total enrolement of 677 pupils (349 boys and 328 girls). The food these children receive in Malawi is a soya and maize porridge enriched with vitamins and minerals, known locally as likuni phala. This is locally sourced, which supports the local economy and is good for the environment. The porridge is normally cooked in enormous pans by amazing volunteers from the local community, many of them relatives of the children being fed.

While schools were closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the porridge was distributed in the community for the families of children to collect and cook for their children at home. Mary’s Meals began in Malawi when its founder, Magnus McFarlane-Barrow, met a 14 year old Malawian boy called Edward who said: “I would like to have enough food to eat and I would like to go to school”. Mary’s Meals has a fantastic impact in Malawi on the lives of the children and their communities. Where Mary’s Meals are provided, more children enroll in school, more children attend school regularly and more children do better at school because they have more energy to concentrate. In Malawi, the percentage of children who said they felt hungry ‘most of the time’ or ‘always’ reduced from 42% to 1% after one year of receiving Mary’s Meals.

By providing a daily meal in their place of learning, the immediate needs of hungry children are met. This encourages them to go to school to gain an education that can, in the future, be their ladder out of poverty.

If you would like to learn more about Mary’s Meals, please click here.

Our fundraising page can be viewed here.