Planning for Life supports Mary's Meals, an international movement
that sets up school feeding projects in communities where poverty and
hunger prevent children from gaining an education.
Last Updated on Saturday, 29 May 2010 05:42 Written by <a href='/coffee-shop/community/62-admin/profile'>Admin</a> Friday, 28 May 2010 10:33
The problem - world hunger
Mary’s Meals provides daily meals to chronically hungry children in their local school. In this way the hungry child is encouraged to attend school and, through education gain a better future for himself and his communities. Today more people die from hunger related diseases today than they do from HIV/AIDS, malaria or tuberculosis combined. In a world where there is enough food for everybody, hunger is still the biggest threat to health.
Children are particularly vulnerable. Hunger kills millions of them each year. It also stunts their growth – and their dreams. Hungry children think about survival, not about going to school. In order to survive they have to labour, whether in the fields or on the streets. Even if they do make it into the classroom, hunger will affect their ability to learn. All of this suffering could be prevented.
When Jeremy Deedes, Director of Planning for Life, asked Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, the founder of Mary's Meals, what he could do to help, Magnus started by expressing his view that governments are corrupt because people are not educated enough to hold them to account. He described how he sees Mary’s Meals and the principle of feeding linked to education as being a long term solution to this which ultimately can bring peace to the regions in which Mary's Meals operates and drag them out of poverty.