Charities get together to help starving children

Starving children and families in one of east Africa’s worst-hit regions are to be provided with 100 tonnes of food after two charities joined forces to step up their emergency response plan.

Mary’s Meals has teamed up with African relief agency Gift of the Givers to provide 900,000 meals for those affected by the famine in Somalia.

Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, chief executive of Mary’s Meals, is expected to arrive in Malawi on Tuesday, where he will help to load the first batch of food on a plane organised by Gift of Givers. He will fly to Mogadishu the following day, where tens of thousands of people have fled.

The charity, which has its headquarters in Dalmally, said it was costing 4p per meal, and was appealing for public donations to boost the amount of food it was able to send.

Mr MacFarlane-Barrow said: “Like everyone else, we have been horrified by the images of suffering children and the scale of the need in Somalia, but initially we did not see an opportunity to work effectively there and until now have concentrated our response to northern Kenya, where we have worked for many years.

“However, when our trusted partners established themselves in Mogadishu and began effectively distributing food to those suffering most there, it made it possible for us to help, simply by sourcing food in Malawi, where we have a large operation, for direct transport into Mogadishu.

“We are delighted that we can now use donations to save lives in a place where so many are suffering.”

Mary’s Meals has carried out emergency relief work in India, Burma, Thailand and most recently Haiti, where the charity was involved in rebuilding its school-feeding projects following the earthquake.

It provides a daily meal in a place of education to chronically hungry children with the aim of attracting them to the classroom in the hope it will lift them out of poverty in later life.

The food being bought by Mary’s Meals is a nutritious maize-based porridge, likuni phala.

The aid delivery to Somalia is the latest effort being made by Mary’s Meals to support people affected by the crisis in east Africa, where it is already feeding more than 24,000 children with a daily life-saving meal in northern Kenya.

It is estimated that 3.7 million people, almost half the population, in Somalia are suffering from a humanitarian crisis.