Magnus Macfarlane-Barrow
Founder and CEO of Mary’s Meals

Mary’s Meals is first of all a grassroots movement – this is an intrinsic part of our mission, and all who support it are of equal value no matter the type or size of donation…. Some development experts criticize Mary’s Meals (and advise the governments and institutional donors they work for not to fund us), suggesting we make it all sound too simple and that this approach of feeding children cannot be sustainable. The environments we work in, the challenges we need to overcome to ensure the schools have food every day, and the problems that people in poverty battle with, are certainly anything but simple. But our core approach is. Annie Lennox, like everyone else who has met us and visited a Mary’s Meals project, certainly knows we are not rocket scientists, but she is also in no doubt that we don’t need to be. The tens of thousands who support us with small donations all over the world and the thousands who cook for the kids in their communities are generally not rocket scientists or ‘development experts’ either, but they immediately see that this approach is necessary and life-changing.