What makes us different
For many children, Mary’s Meals may be the only meal they will have that day. In Malawi, it costs us £7 to provide Mary’s Meals to a child for a whole school year and an average of £10.70 per child globally. But how do we keep our costs low?
Buying Food Locally
Wherever possible we purchase locally produced food for use in the meals we serve in schools. This supports the local economy, it respects local culture and food preferences, and it avoids incurring extra transport costs. In Malawi, we serve Likuni Phala, a nutritious maize porridge fortified with vitamins and minerals, and in other countries such as Thailand, we provide curries made with meat, fish, rice and vegetables.
Local Community Contribution
Mary’s Meals projects work in partnership with local communities. In Liberia the communities build the simple kitchens needed to cook Mary’s Meals at a school. In Malawi over 60,000 volunteers, usually parents, cook and serve over 500,000 meals every school day. They draw up rotas, manage the stores, look after the cooking stoves, and make the idea of Mary’s Meals a reality. They are willing to volunteer their services in this way because they understand better than anyone how important the daily meal is to their children.
Commitment to Good Stewardship
We are committed to spending at least 93p of every £1 you donate on our charitable work, and are very careful to keep our running costs as low as we can. We do this by welcoming volunteers into every aspect of the organisation, by encouraging donations in kind of goods and services (e.g. new office furniture), and not wasting money on anything that is not absolutely necessary.
Mary’s Meals is a member organisation of NIDOS (the Network of International Development Organisations in Scotland).
