World Porridge Day
Celebrate the importance of porridge! Mary's Meals invites you to take part in this year's celebrations, to make it the best event yet!
Download Nick Nairn’s porridge recipes >>
Each year Mary’s Meals invites its supporters to celebrate the importance of porridge on World Porridge Day. Now in its fourth year, this event is an annual celebration of a traditional dish, and a chance to draw attention to the vital role that porridge plays at Mary’s Meals’ projects in Africa.
Porridge, of course, provides a hearty breakfast for people all over the world, but for over 549,000 schoolchildren in Malawi it is a powerful incentive to go to school and, for many, the only nutritious meal they will have that day.
At schools in Malawi where Mary’s Meals is working, each child is given a daily serving of likuni phala – which is a nutritious, vitamin-enriched maize porridge served in plastic mugs.
The porridge meets the children’s immediate needs by filling their empty bellies, but also attracts them to the classroom where they can get an education which can lift them out of poverty in later life.
Each child is responsible for looking after their own mug, and holding onto it ensures they get a fair portion every school day. Some carry them around their necks on a piece of string to make sure they don’t miss out.
Supporters can get involved in World Porridge Day by hosting a porridge breakfast at home, work, school or elsewhere in the local community. For fundraising ideas and more information on World Porridge Day, please contact our Fundraising team on 0800 698 1212, or email info@marysmeals.org
Last year’s festivities
Everyone from First Minister Alex Salmond to the chimpanzees at Edinburgh Zoo went bananas for a spot of warm porridge on World Porridge Day on October 10th, 2011. Individuals and groups took part during the days around the event, raising awareness of Mary’s Meals whilst enjoying delicious porridge and flapjacks.
The fourth annual World Porridge Day will soon be upon us. School children, church groups, offices and individuals can participate in many creative ways to make this the most successful World Porridge Day yet. Last year, Fife council opened a ‘Porridge Bar’ for the day in Leven, attracting lots of hungry people on the go. They also saw it as a chance to promote healthy breakfasts to pupils in schools throughout Fife.
Alex Salmond was one of those enjoying a porridge breakfast. His whole cabinet enjoyed top class porridge served by 2010′s porridge making champion, Neal Robertson.
And it wasn’t just Scots taking up their spurtles! School pupils in Texas also got involved by doing away with furniture for a day and putting themselves in the shoes of poor children in schools around the world, having a bowl of porridge for lunch.
Children at HHI Primary School in Malawi, which receives Mary’s Meals, also celebrated with musical performances focused around the role of the porridge provided by Mary’s Meals.
Celebrating World Porridge Day isn’t just a reason to try your hand at making a tasty serving of porridge, it also does an important job of spreading the word about the value of one simple meal served to children in the poorest countries in the world. Serving a meal of likuni phala to school children in Malawi costs just £7 for a whole school year.
Thank you to all of those who helped to make World Porridge Day such a success last year and may it be even bigger in 2012!
Join us in 2012
We hope that World Porridge Day will raise money to help us feed more hungry children, and that it will also raise awareness about what we do and why. Do let us know if you have a World Porridge Day activity planned, and if you need information, leaflets, posters or just some ideas, please get in touch. After your event, please send us the story and pictures (daniel.adams@marysmeals.org). World Porridge Day is organised by Mary’s Meals, with support from Carrbridge Community Council.
