Catholic charity providing thousands of free meals daily to schoolchildren in Tigray, northern Ethiopia, recently resumed operations after a brutal civil war precluded it from its mission for almost three years.
Since 2017, Mary’s Meals has worked with the Daughters of Charity in Tigray to bring food to schoolchildren there. Pre-2020 they fed an estimated 24,000 children a day, but the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent commencement of the country’s devastating civil war halted the program. Mary’s Meals had every intention of reopening in the fall of 2020 following COVID, but the start of the conflict precluded those plans.
“It was really heartbreaking to see that what we were expecting to be quite a joyous occasion in terms of the resumption of school feeding, children being welcomed back into schools and being able to return to what must have felt a bit more like normal life, suddenly being decimated by this terrible conflict,” Alex Keay, director of programs at Mary’s Meals International, told CNA.
Schoolchildren in Tigray, Ethiopia, eat biscuits and tea provided by Mary’s Meals. Copyright Mary’s Meals
Schoolchildren in Tigray, Ethiopia, eat biscuits and tea provided by Mary’s Meals. Copyright Mary’s Meals.