Growing Global Hunger Crisis Requires Immediate Unwavering Commitment and Support Crisis pushes millions into severe hunger in countries with diminished ability to produce and access foods; children bearing an outsized impact.
Bloomfield, NJ
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June 28, 2022 09:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time
The catastrophic impact on world feeding programs from the confluence of conflicts, climate, COVID, rising prices and disrupted supply chains requires immediate coordinated action. Mary’s Meals, an international school feeding charity, believes resource sharing and increased financial support is urgently needed to help prevent a worldwide humanitarian hunger crisis, the effects of which may be felt for years to come. Children are bearing an outsized impact of the growing global food crisis.
“For 20 years, Mary’s Meals has provided children in the world’s poorest communities with a daily meal in their place of education. Since we’ve been doing this, I cannot remember so many humanitarian crises unfolding at one time in the world. We continue to see that children are disproportionally impacted by these crises,” states Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, founder, and CEO of Mary’s Meals, which feeds 2.2 million children every school day in 20 developing countries.
“The urgent need for humanitarian aid is evident and must be answered. We are in a race against time to address widespread hunger today, while creating programs to end chronic poverty, enable food independence and reduce dependence on external aid. Increased cooperation by developed countries and increased financial support will be crucial to address the sheer scale of hungry people as rising costs, natural disasters, disrupted supply chains and conflict converge. We firmly believe that hunger isn’t an abstract concept – it is the aching belly of children whose health and dreams are being stolen from them,” states Mr. MacFarlane-Barrow.
Mary’s Meals advocates that the growing global food crisis demands that the world’s developed countries commit to helping those in the world’s poorest countries most impacted today. In its ongoing work, Mary’s Meals witnesses this impact every day. Yemen is described as the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. The people of South Sudan and Ethiopia are victims of ongoing conflict, in which entire communities are displaced, leaving families dependent on foreign aid. For nations like Haiti, Madagascar and Malawi, natural disasters compounded the chronic poverty and hunger.
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About Mary’s Meals
Mary’s Meals is a global movement that sets up school feeding projects in some of the world’s poorest communities, where poverty and hunger prevent children from gaining an education. Mary’s Meals works with in-country volunteers to provide one daily meal in a place of learning to attract chronically poor children into the classroom, where they receive an education that can be their ladder out of poverty. Mary’s Meals began by feeding just 200 children in Malawi in 2002. Today, the organization feeds 2,279,941 hungry children every school day across five continents, in the following countries: Benin, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Haiti, India, Kenya, Lebanon, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Myanmar, Niger, Romania, South Sudan, Syria, Thailand, Uganda, Yemen, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Mary’s Meals collaborates with the U.N. World Food Program and is part of the global School Meals Coalition, an emerging initiative of governments and partners to drive actions that can urgently reestablish, improve, and scale up food and education systems. For more information about Mary’s Meals visit: www.marysmealsusa.org or follow Mary’s Meals on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.
Interviews
Interviews with Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, founder and CEO of Mary’s Meals, are available. Additional images and information are available upon request. Contact: Helena Finnegan, +1 239-290-7788, helena.finnegan@marysmeals.org.
Contact Details
Mary's Meals USA
Paul McMahon
+1 781-910-0904
Company Website
