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Mary's Meals founder gives Virtus talk at Ealing Abbey


A packed audience for MacFarlane Barrow's talk

A packed audience for MacFarlane Barrow's talk

Mary's Meals, the child hunger charity, is to launch a pilot project to feed Syrian refugees living in Lebanon. The news was announced by the charity's founder, Magnus MacFarlane Barrow, during a talk he gave at Ealing Abbey on Wednesday, introducing his new book: The Shed That Fed a Million Children.

More than 1.1million refugees have fled to the country - the largest group compared to a country's population in the world. More than 70 per cent are living below the poverty line, hungry and living in poor conditions. Mary's Meals' new scheme will start next week, feeding 1,000 children at school in Antelias, on the outskirts of Beirut. The project will be run by volunteers, including Lebanese and Syrian mothers, and will run up to six months at first, said MacFarlane-Barrow.

Last year, Mary's Meals passed the milestone of feeding one million children a day in the poorest places in the world. Lebanon is the 13th country Mary's Meals works in, with other operations in Malawi, Liberia, Zambia, Kenya, Haiti, India and South Sudan.

The Shed That Fed a Million Children, tells the story of how the charity started and the work it does across the world, earning Mr MacFarlane-Barrow the a place on Time's 100 most dangerous men in the world list.

Mr MacFarlane Barrow, told his audience: "It was very much a case of starting small and then people understanding our vision. The situation in Lebanon and the plight of the refugees is something we all feel compassion for. We've been investigating how Mary's Meals can help, and work with partners in the country and we're glad we can.

"It's the children that suffer. They're torn from school and their homes. We'll be helping a small number of children for now, but I'm glad we can help in some way."

The United Nations warned that two million children in Syria are in danger of becoming a "lost generation" - with evidence the longer they are out of school, the harder it is to get them back.

The evening was the first in a monthly series of Virtus talks at Ealing Abbey. The next speaker will be Fr Timothy Radcliffe, OP, on April 13.

The final speaker will be Ann Widdecombe on July 13.

For more information visit http://virtuslectures.weebly.com/about.html.

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