The Shed That Fed a Million Children

by Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow

  But our priority and focus remained the provision of school meals, and by this stage we were faced with a question. Should we continue expanding in the rural areas or try to help schools in the city also? The population of Monrovia had doubled since before the war to around 1.3 million. Many of those who had fled the bloody conflict in the countryside to the safety of the displaced camps around the city had never returned to their villages. Like millions of others in the developing world, they were chasing the urban dream. With a view to making an informed decision, we visited the bustling streets of Westport, one of the older slum areas, where hordes of children were working on little market stalls selling fish and second-hand goods. Others carried loads balanced on their young heads or pushed carts between stalls. And while doing so, they were missing their chance of an education and an escape from that grinding poverty. In one of the schools there the head teacher, Mr George, shared his struggle with us. He was doing his best to reach as many children as possible by running two schools in the same building, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. But still many children were not in school because they had to work, and many others attended too hungry and too weak to learn. At least the teachers here in the city schools were being paid, but their monthly salary of sixty US dollars was the price of one large bag of rice.

  ‘We are desperate. This poverty is one of the things that causes families to break up,’ Mr George told us.

  After the tour of the school and further sharing of information, he asked us when we could begin Mary’s Meals in his school. I told him that I could not give him an answer to that because we were just starting to look at possibilities and had not even decided if we would set up in Monrovia.

  ‘Do you know what it is like to have a daughter who you cannot afford to feed?’ he asked me with some anger in his voice. ‘How do you tell your teenager daughters to behave and stay at home when you cannot even feed them? How can you blame them if they go on the streets and do not respect us? How can you blame them if they go their own way and misbehave?’

  I did not know the answer to any of his questions. I had never been unable to give my children food to eat. I do not know how it feels to be tormented by a fear that my daughters might have to sell themselves for food. I knew I could not even begin to understand what this father standing in front of me was going through and I found it difficult to look him in the eye.

  ‘I’m sorry. I just can’t give you an answer now. We need to think about this. We will do our best and I promise you we will let you know when we’ve decided,’ I offered him, feebly, as we took our leave.

  In the end, having weighed things up, we decided to continue our efforts in the rural areas rather than the city. We could see that most aid efforts were happening in the city while villages were neglected and even poorer. We wanted to do all we could to encourage a return to the farms rather than adding to reasons for people to stay in the city. Not that we doubted for one second that there was a huge pressing need for Mary’s Meals in places like Westport; it was rather a case of recognizing we could not do everything at once.

  But Mr George’s questions bothered me. How easy it was to pay visits to the poor, ask them questions and take photographs, before climbing back in our cars. And how difficult it was to understand for even one moment what it really felt like to be so poor. Because I believed I had learnt a lot from the poorest of the poor – especially in matters of faith – I was at risk sometimes of almost romanticizing poverty. But there was nothing romantic at all about the kind of poverty that was destroying Mr George and his family. It was a destructive, evil thing that no human was created to endure. But perhaps it was good also to find myself in that situation and to be powerless too. By admitting to Mr George that I might not be able to help him with his desperate need, I was also admitting to myself that my efforts and ability to help were very limited too. And that was good – at least for me.

  Over the next few years we were able to expand into Grand Cape Mount, another large forested district in Western Liberia, bordering with Sierra Leone, whose mainly Muslim population lived in small villages connected by dirt-track roads. One by one, we began to serve eighty-two schools in that county, having built a satellite warehouse where we could store bulk-food supplies.

  I was hugely impressed by the bamboo-pole kitchens the communities constructed here, and even more so by the school gardens that were now becoming a key part of our model in Liberia. These little farms belonged to the school communities, and by now we had decided that if a school wished to be considered for the Mary’s Meals programme in Liberia it had to make a commitment to having such a project at the school. Huge amounts of work had gone into clearing large areas of bush adjacent to schools, and head teachers proudly showed us rows of cassava and other ‘greens’ which they were adding to the meals we supplied, as well as pineapples and other valuable produce they could sell to provide desperately needed support for the schools. Another enormous benefit of these gardens was the opportunity to teach farming skills to a generation of pupils who had spent much of their childhood in displaced camps away from their farms.

  One day in 2012, on the way to a school in Cape Mount, we crossed a neatly constructed concrete bridge. Joseph explained that when they first visited this school after receiving a request for Mary’s Meals, they had been forced to tell the community we were unable to include them because it was impossible to reach them with a delivery vehicle. A few weeks later the village elders came back to Joseph and asked if he would send one of our team to reassess the road. This time they discovered the previously impassable small river had been spanned by a new concrete bridge built by the community. The enormous desire for Mary’s Meals in these communities was prompting many good works. At each school we met queues of children with colourful bowls, women cooking on open fires and teachers telling us about all the new children coming to school for the first time. On average, enrolment increased by a staggering 40 per cent in the schools in Cape Mount after the introduction of Mary’s Meals.

  On our return journey from visiting some of those schools, we stopped for a meeting with community leaders involved in the delivery of Mary’s Meals in this area. An Imam who had worked tirelessly to mobilize the communities here – and who had organized for the donation of land on which we had built our warehouse that served the county – met us on his motorbike beside the road, all smiles despite us being over an hour late. He led us to a village hall full of other patient people who welcomed us warmly. The Imam opened the meeting with a prayer, and then before inviting them to speak to us about their experience of Mary’s Meals, we told them our plan to try and reach all the other schools in Cape Mount before the end of the year. They broke into prolonged applause.

  An elderly man with a white beard and prayer cap spoke with great emotion, saying, ‘We are so grateful for this news. It is pitiful to eat when your neighbour is going without. When I saw the children round here hungry I would feel hungry too. Now that I see them fed every day I am no longer hungry.’

  9

  In Tinsel Town

  Baloney is flattery laid on so thick it cannot be true, and blarney is flattery so thin we love it.

  FULTON J. SHEEN

  All over the world new doors began to open and a bewildering assortment of people invited Mary’s Meals in. In ornamented Austrian churches, on historic Roman squares, round a pool in Palm Beach, at a football stadium in Calabria and inside a Young Offenders Institute in Glasgow people gathered with open hearts to hear the Mary’s Meals message. The diversity of people I talked to was staggering, almost comical, and I discovered so many unexpected things when I went to meet them. In a synagogue I discussed why our work was named after a Jewish mother; at a global conference on education in Abu Dhabi I was asked to give my talk immediately after a presentation on Exocet missiles given by someone who manufactured them. At a party in Los Angeles I met a professional beach volleyball player and a retired stuntman, both of whom seemed as genuinely fascinated by my
work as I most certainly was by theirs.

  Of course, not all my talks were in exotic faraway places. I spoke to hundreds of schools and church groups in Scotland and was able to reach many people just a few yards from my office, by talking to the groups of faithful who continued to come to Craig Lodge on retreat. When I had first reluctantly begun giving talks, the ones I found most terrifying of all were to schools. But eventually these became my favourite. I especially loved the part when they asked me questions, which were normally very sincere and heartfelt but sometimes wonderfully surprising.

  ‘Have you ever seen a killer bee?’ was just one that left me floundering for something more than a one-word answer.

  But the thing I liked most of all about the schoolchildren was their lack of cynicism and the very short gap between them deciding they would like to do something and them actually doing it. To them it seemed obvious that no child should go to school without food, and clear that they personally should and could do something about it; procrastination was something they left to adults.

  But while the grassroots support at home continued to flourish, the international support was growing even faster. Mary’s Meals Germany was registered as the first of several European affiliates in 2006, and then, in the USA, Mary’s Meals was born in 2008 through a group of wonderful people in Miami, a city that by now I often travelled through on my way to Haiti. Milona told me she had good friends in Florida, whom she had met in Medjugorje, who were offering for me to stay with them. Thus it was I came to know Lourdes Guitierez, her daughter, Lourdes Fanjul, and their good friend, Lourdes Diego. Having never even met anyone with that lovely name before, I found myself asking what the plural was – especially as they all became not just good friends but founding board members of Mary’s Meals USA, along with another couple called Michelle and Albert Holder. Together we worked hard to start raising awareness of Mary’s Meals in the USA, without knowing that something was about to happen that would make that task a whole lot easier.

  In the spring of 2010 we received a call from CNN in New York, saying I had been selected as one of their ‘CNN Heroes’. They explained this would involve them featuring me and the work of Mary’s Meals in some short films they would broadcast, and asked if they could send a film crew over the following week. After recoiling at the ‘hero’ label, we took stock and realized this was the most incredible opportunity we had ever been given to raise awareness of our work, particularly in North America, where supporters of Mary’s Meals had already spoken to us of CNN Heroes. So we said yes, and within a few weeks the story of Mary’s Meals was being broadcast into millions of homes around the world. A couple of months later I received another call from CNN, this time to tell me I had been selected by a panel of esteemed judges as one of their ‘top ten heroes’ of the year. I was particularly thrilled to learn that Muhammad Ali was a member of that panel! So we were invited to Los Angeles for a very glamorous, star-studded event that would be televised. And so another film crew arrived in Scotland, and then travelled to Haiti with me to make a short film that would be broadcast with the event. A couple of weeks later Julie and I found ourselves arriving in Los Angeles, feeling rather nervous and a little bit excited too.

  At our hotel they introduced us to the other nine ‘heroes’ who we had by now become familiar with on the CNN website. Some of them did indeed already feel like heroes to us. We had read all about Evans Wdongo, a young Kenyan man who had designed a simple solar-powered lamp so children in Africa could read and do homework at home in the evenings; Anuradha Koirala who was working to prevent the trafficking and sexual exploitation of Nepal’s women and girls; and Dan Walrath, a Texan, who was building homes for injured Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. It was lovely to meet these remarkable people, most of whom seemed equally uncomfortable in the environment in which we all suddenly found ourselves. As the big event drew closer I kept reminding Julie that she would need to point out any famous people who we might come in contact with; my lack of awareness of celebrities had been causing some hilarity among my colleagues within Mary’s Meals for some time and I was nervous that I might offend someone with my ignorance. In the lead-up to the event, our team in Scotland had done their research and explained to me that at the award ceremony CNN would pair each ‘hero’ with a celebrity who would present them with an award. They had discovered that Gerard Butler, the Scottish Hollywood actor, was one of the celebrities and they predicted I would be linked with my compatriot on the night.

  The CNN people took us all to the venue, the famous Shrine Auditorium, where televised awards ceremonies such as the Oscars and Grammys have been previously held and gave us a tour. They explained more about the event and took us through some stage rehearsals. They informed us that in addition to the 3,000-strong, star-studded audience that would be attending the show the following evening, a further 16 million were expected to see it on television around the world. They also told us we had 45 seconds exactly for our acceptance speeches and if we went over time at all they would simply edit it out. Then they told me they wanted to put me on first. They said the film they had made about Mary’s Meals was spectacular and they wanted me to make the first acceptance speech. I did at this point become very nervous indeed. As soon as I had understood the magnitude of this opportunity some weeks before, I felt that any acceptance speech should be used to give thanks to God and Our Lady for this work. I suspected the editors at CNN might not let that go but I had a conviction that this is what I should do.

  Arriving at the theatre the next evening with Julie squeezing my arm, dressed in my kilt and my dad’s fiercest sporran, I felt a little better. Then came the first of several bizarre experiences. I was taken backstage for ‘make-up and hair styling’. This was a new and uncomfortable experience for me. I sat back as the friendly lady put gel in my hair, and thought of windy days back on the fish farm, of sea spray and oilskins and woolly hats and not having to talk to another human being all day. Then we were being shown to the front row. Julie looked even more beautiful than usual. I felt braver. Sitting a few seats along from us was Jon Bon Jovi, who was there to perform, and I felt very comforted that I at least recognized this famous person – and even more so when he talked to me in a warm and friendly way.

  The show began, with Anderson Cooper presenting (I recognized him too!), and first up was Gerard Butler to introduce me. Our team in Scotland had called that one right which was great because it meant I also knew who he was. This was going well. He read a very flattering little introduction speech, and then they showed their film about Mary’s Meals – which was indeed beautiful and even more flattering. Then I went up to receive the award – a rather nice inscribed block of wood. I swallowed to try and get my impossibly dry throat working and told the people in the theatre and the 16 million at home how happy I was to receive this award on behalf of the thousands taking part in this work, that I believed that this vision of ours is possible to achieve – that every child can receive one meal every day in their place of education – and I thanked God, then Mary, the mother of Jesus, who herself brought up a child in poverty and knew what it was to be exiled, for her inspiration and her love. I must have made it within the forty-five seconds because they broadcast it all!

  As soon as we left the back of the stage Gerard shook hands with me vigorously, saying, ‘I need to tell you something really funny! Yesterday I was in here rehearsing for this. I got halfway through the script about you and said, “wait a minute, this is the guy my mum keeps telling me about!” My mum keeps phoning and saying I need to meet you. She heard you talking about Mary’s Meals at some event in Glasgow a few months ago and has been on about it ever since!’

  His agent shook my hand and laughed. ‘Yes, I will be in some serious trouble if we don’t get a photograph of you and Gerard together to send to her!’

  Thus they turned the whole situation hilariously on its head. After posing for some pictures, during which we discovered we both supported the same football club – Glasgo
w Celtic – we rushed back to our seats for the rest of the show.

  At the interval things got even funnier. Gerard came over to meet Julie and for some reason with him was Demi Moore. Now for many years Julie and my little brother Mark had teased me about her. I think I must have said something about her beauty while watching a film with Mark, and he had mischievously repeated the comment to Julie. They never missed an opportunity to laugh at me whenever Demi Moore appeared on television – or even if her name was simply mentioned. And here she was being introduced to me. She was crying about the Mary’s Meals film she had just seen, kissing me on the cheek and congratulating us on our work. I can’t remember what I said to her, but it was certainly incoherent. Julie laughed so hard when we got back to our seats for the remainder of the show. At the end of the evening Anuradha was pronounced the overall winner, which I was delighted at because her cause was such an important one – and she herself a very dignified and impressive lady.

  Next we were led to an ‘after party’, where each of us was given an area to sit with our friends and where people had the opportunity to come and talk to us if they wished. All the other celebrities had left immediately at the end of the show, but Gerry and his agent came along, much to our delight. A little queue formed of people waiting to speak to me. Actually, I discovered quite quickly that it was not so much that they wanted to speak to me, more that they wanted a photograph with me wearing my kilt. For the next few hours we never got to the end of the queue, photo after photo was taken with all kinds of people. One unexpected encounter was with a group of miners from Chile, who were at that point world famous. They had been trapped in a mine deep underground for sixty-nine days while the whole world watched and prayed. My own children had been praying for them every evening for weeks prior to their recent rescue, and so it felt very wonderful to unexpectedly be talking with these men whose suffering and bravery and wonderful escape we had watched unfold.