An Argyll-based charity has expanded its school feeding programme in war-torn Syria in a bid to help long-suffering children rebuild their lives.
Mary’s Meals, in partnership with Dutch organisation Dorcas, is working within six schools in Aleppo to provide nearly 1,500 children with a daily meal.
The charity, based at Dalmally in Argyll, offers crucial support to impoverished communities around the world by setting up community-run school feeding programmes.
These aim to encourage children – who might otherwise be forced to work, beg or forage for food – to attend school and receive a nutritious meal that will help them concentrate on their studies.
Last year, the charity grew its global programme at an unprecedented rate by reaching a further 85,000 children – in total reaching 1.1million worldwide.
In Syria, where 1.7million children are out of school and 69% of the population are living in extreme poverty, the aim now is to encourage children who have experienced trauma back into the classroom.
Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, Mary’s Meals’ founder and chief executive, said: “After a four-year-long battle for Aleppo and tens of thousands of deaths, the siege – at least for now – is over. At last, children have the chance to start regaining their lost childhoods.
“Through Mary’s Meals, both the immediate, desperate needs of today, and the longer term necessity of education, will be nourished and nurtured through each meal served by local volunteers.”
The charity’s expansion into Syria follows a pilot programme last year in Lebanon where, alongside its regional partner Dorcas, it began providing daily meals to Syrian refugee children and their Lebanese classmates in a school near the capital, Beirut.
Lebanon is hosting 1.5 million refugees from Syria. Two-thirds of the refugee children are not in school and 74% of refugee families are food insecure.
With Lebanese and Syrian mothers volunteering side-by-side to implement the school feeding, the programme has been extended to reach children at the Bourj el-Barajneh refugee settlement in the southern outskirts of Beirut.
This brings the total number of children benefiting from Mary’s Meals in Lebanon to 1,430.
The average global cost to provide a child with Mary’s Meals for a whole school year is just £13.90.
