Two Malawian sisters who receive Mary’s Meals are heading to London after being invited to perform with UK band The Noisettes at a pre-Olympics concert.
Madalo, 20, and 16-year-old Grace will take to the ‘Africa Stage’ with the band this Sunday, 22nd July, at the River of Music event at the London Pleasure Gardens.
The girls first caught the attention of The Noisettes when the band saw them performing at Malawi’s “Lake of Stars” festival in 2010. Back then, the girls played with their school group, the Jacaranda Band. Now they’re incredibly excited about the prospect of performing in the UK. “I feel very happy and excited and I get to travel and see new things in the process,” said Madalo.
The sisters attend school at the Jacaranda School for Orphans in Limbe, Malawi, where Mary’s Meals supplies a daily meal of nutritious likuni phala porridge to pupils. Both girls said they wanted to thank staff at the Jacaranda Foundation for aiding them in their achievements.
Grace said: “I am thankful for this opportunity to exhibit our skills and talent. Without Jacaranda, I would not be known. I’m so excited about the performance.”
Madalo also had kind words for Mary’s Meals. She said: “I would like to thank Mary’s Meals for the porridge. It helps us a lot as some of us come from afar and we are needy and hungry so the porridge goes a long way for us.”
Grace and Madalo lost their father 15 years ago and their mother struggled to look after them and their four siblings. The girls were given fully sponsored places at the Jacaranda Foundation where they are gaining an education and developing their talents.
Marie Da Silva, founder of the Jacaranda Foundation, is grateful for Mary’s Meals’ support of the school. Marie told us: “Mary’s Meals has changed our children’s lives. Today we are able to feed 400 orphans. For the children who are HIV positive, the phala [porridge] is life-saving because, for many, this is the one nutritious meal they have each day. We have seen the big difference in their school attendance, performance and, most of all, their health.”
Mary’s Meals now feeds more than 549,000 children in Malawi every day at school, thus attracting children to the classroom, where they receive an education that can – in the future – be their ladder out of poverty.
