A SCOTTISH charity will reach 12,796 more chronically hungry children with a meal every school day as a result of a £500,000 boost.

With cash raised through the People’s Postcode Lottery, Mary’s Meals will now provide more school meals in Africa to help attract impoverished children to the classroom, fill their empty stomachs and give them the energy to learn.

Daniel Adams, UK executive director of Mary’s Meals, said: “Through the generosity of players of People’s Postcode Lottery, and the shared belief that we can reach more hungry children, this latest support means that 12,796 more children in Africa will eat a meal in school today.

“Children who will receive Mary’s Meals through this funding can grow up – better nourished and better educated – to become the men and women who will lift their communities out of poverty and end their reliance on aid.”

A significant part of the funding will also be used to support the growth of the charity’s work, including delivering key projects in organisation and staff development.

Mary’s Meals feeds more than 1.5 million children in 18 countries around the world every school day.

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When MacFarlane-Barrow visited Malawi during a famine he met a mother dying from Aids and asked her eldest son what his dreams were in life, he replied simply: “I want to have enough food to eat and to go to school one day.”

His words inspired MacFarlane-Barrow to set up a charity to provide one daily meal in a place of learning in order to attract chronically poor children into the classroom, where they would receive an education that could, in the future, be their ladder out of poverty.

The charity now reaches 1,504,471 children every day in some of the world’s poorest countries including Haiti, South Sudan and Syria.

Independently verified research from Malawi, Liberia and Zambia has shown that in schools where children receive Mary’s Meals, hunger is reduced, enrolment increases, attendance improves, drop-out rates fall, absences dwindle, concentration in lessons is heightened, attainment levels increase, parents are less anxious, and children are happier.

Mary’s Meals is committed to spending at least 93% of donations directly on its charitable activities. This is only possible because much of the charity’s work is done by an army of dedicated volunteers – including more than 80,000 in Malawi alone.

The average cost to feed a child with Mary’s Meals for a whole school year is just £13.90. Players of the People’s Postcode Lottery have raised more than £1.7 million to date for the charity through the Postcode African Trust.

News of the award was welcomed by the Mary’s Meals team in Zambia, where an additional 1,597 hungry children across the Eastern Province of the country will receive a daily meal thanks to the funding boost. “I would like to thank players of People’s Postcode Lottery for their support for Mary’s Meals in Zambia, which ensures we are able to feed more children with a daily meal in school,” said Mathias Zimba, Mary’s Meals’ head of programmes in Zambia.

As well as Zambia, the latest funding will support the charity’s school feeding projects in Benin, Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, South Sudan and Uganda.

Callum Aitken, from the People’s Postcode Lottery, said for players it is a “win win opportunity”.

He explained they have the chance to win every day, but are also “helping fantastic charities like Mary’s Meals win by ensuring they have access to this invaluable funding”.