BY Ian Dunn | March 3 | 
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UK Government doubles Mary’s Meals £5 million to £10 million
Scottish charity’s Feed Our Future campaign boosted by by UK Aid Match scheme
Mary’s Meals has doubled the £5 million it raised in a campaign at the end of last year to £10 million.
The Scottish charity’s Feed Our Future campaign was selected for the Department for International Development’s (DFID) UK Aid Match scheme, which matches public donations pound for pound.
The campaign originally hoped to raise £1.5m during the last three months of 2015 but supporters across the UK boosted its coffers to £5 million, which the UK Government scheme doubled by adding £5 million.
Mary’s Meals, named after Our Lady, currently provides more than 1.1 million of the world’s poorest children in 13 countries with a daily meal in school. The additional funding will go towards a three-year project to expand and develop the charity’s existing school feeding programmes in Malawi and Zambia. This week the charity also announced its first project in the Middle East, reaching Lebanese children and Syrian refugees in that country with the help of Postcode Lottery funding.
“Wherever we begin serving Mary’s Meals, more children start attending school every day and children who were previously in school but too hungry to learn become able to concentrate in class,” Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, Mary’s Meals founder and chief executive (above), said.
“Thanks to the overwhelming response to our campaign, we will now receive £5 million in UK Government funding, so we are extending our project plans to ensure thousands more children will benefit. We are so thankful to our quite amazing supporters and to the UK Government for matching those generous donations.
UK International Development Secretary Justine Greening said: “The UK Government Aid Match funding means that donations from the generous supporters of Mary’s Meals will make even more of a difference.
“Mary’s Meals is an inspirational charity, helping to transform the lives of some of the world’s poorest children. Its work shows the importance of Scotland’s role in the UK’s international development effort. Working together we are helping to build a safer, healthier, more prosperous world.”
—To read the SCO report on Mary’s Meals in the Middle East, click here.
—More on the charity at https://www.marysmeals.org.uk/
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