The QM has chosen Mary’s Meals as its new charity for this semester. The decision was reached in a Support and Services Committee meeting on Monday where there was a vote between Mary’s Meals and the GU Red Cross society. The selected charity works with local communities in places where the world’s poorest children are found, such as Romania, Malawi and Haiti and works under the doctrine that every child who goes to school should be given a meal. The charity sets up an infrastructure so that the food given to a school child is locally produced. This means that the scheme is not only beneficial to the child but also to their community, boosting the local economy.

The charity, which is based here in Scotland, began work in 2002 feeding 200 orphans in Malawi; in the last decade the operation has expanded to now providing a daily school dinner for over 375,000 children worldwide. By providing food, Mary’s Meals hopes to increase the number of children who can go to school and learn effectively. An education can set a child free from poverty, not only for this generation but for their children in the future too. It takes as little as £6.15 to feed a child going to school for an entire year in Malawi and on average about £9 to fund each individual child involved in the scheme.

The charity is currently running a campaign called the backpack project, in which people are invited to fill a backpack with things that a child would need to go to school. To find out more, the Mary’s Meals website is www.marysmeals.org. For information on getting involved with the GU Red Cross society, please contact gurc@redcross.org.uk. Support and Services committee is held in the Board Room (3rd Floor) at the QM on Mondays at 5:00.