Scottish Catholic Observer

Two schoolgirls from Malawi stole the shown on Sunday as Mary’s Meals charity celebrated its annual day for supporters at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall.

Joyce Mtepa and Vanessa Litta, pupils of Jacaranda School for Orphans, were special guests and star performers at the event alongside Marie Da Silva, founder and president of their school, which is situated in Limbe, Malawi.

Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, founder and chief executive of Mary’s Meals, took the opportunity to inform the charity’s supporters that their generosity is now helping to feed more than 800,000 children in poor communities around the world.

“I thank all the people who do such incredible things for Mary’s Meals,” Mr MacFalane-Barrow said. “I believe our work is the fruit of prayer, and I thank everybody who prays for us and our work.”

In an event that was streamed live on the internet, he mentioned the incredible lengths that so many people go to in support of Mary’s Meals, and there were more than a few gasps from the audience when he highlighted that one of his second cousins is currently walking from the Lanarkshire town of Blantyre to its Malawian namesake to raise funds for the Dalmally-based charity.

In a short question and answer session with the Mary’s Meals Day host, BBC journalist and broadcaster Shelagh Fogarty, Mr MacFarlane-Barrow paid tribute to the inspirational legacy of Mother Teresa, who often spoke about ‘giving until it hurts.’

He also highlighted the words and teaching of Pope Francis, who has been ‘very striking’ in his message of creating a Church for the poor, since his election as leader of the world’s Catholics in March.

Joyce and Vanessa, both very assured in the arts of singing and dancing, then performed two songs alongside pupils from Glasgow’s St Stephen’s Primary School and musicians from the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

The girls, both experiencing their first-ever trip out of Malawi, spoke of being on a plane for the first time.

Both girls said it is their wish to become nurses when they are older. Vanessa said she wants ‘to help sick people,’ while Joyce said she would like ‘to help my sick mother.’

Daniel Adams, Mary’s Meals head of fundraising in the UK and Ireland, then introduced the online launch of Child 31, a documentary film charting the work of the Scottish charity in coming to the aid of some of the world’s poorest children.

Mary’s Meals is currently providing 822,142 children in 16 countries across the world with a daily meal in their place of education. This year, the charity has also sent out almost 59,000 backpacks, full of essential items such as toothbrushes, pens and pencils, to schoolchildren.

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Pic: paul McSherry

—This story ran in full, with additional photographs, in the November 15 edition print of the SCO, available in parishes.