World Porridge Day

Minister for International Development Dr Allan has a porridge breakfast with Mary meals staff in Malawi to mark World Porridge Day.

Mary’s Meals provides daily meals to more than 1.1 million of the world’s poorest children every day they attend school. The Scottish Government has backed the charity with more than £1.7 million funding since 2005, which has provided nearly 43,000,000 nutritious hot meals for more than 73,000 school children across Malawi.

In addition to this, the Scottish Government recently provided £220,000 to Mary’s Meals helping hungry children who have been affected by the Malawi’s worst food crisis for a decade. Mary's Meals is using this money to extend its schools feeding programme, reaching almost 24,000 additional children in areas gripped by acute food shortages.

Dr Allan said:

“Having access to safe, sufficient, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active lifestyle should be an automatic right. However, for many children in Malawi a daily mug of porridge from Mary’s Meals is their only meal of the day. We fund a number of Mary’s Meals projects in schools across Malawi, which are life changing for chronically hungry children. Doing so incentivises parents to send their children to school, in the knowledge that they will receive one nutrient-rich meal, giving them all the nutrition they need to grow, play and also to learn with the aim that education will help them escape from a life of poverty.”