Founder of Mary’s Meals charity vies for top award
THE founder of Scottish charity Mary’s Meals has been named as a finalist for a major humanitarian award. M agnus MacFarlane-Barrow, who launched the charity in 2002, will vie with Nigerian lawyer Zannah Bukar Mustapha and pioneering surgeon David Nott for the Robert Burns Humanitarian Award (RBHA) 2016.
The RBHA is a globally respected, humanitarian accolade supported by South Ayrshire Council and Scotland’s Winter Festivals, with sponsorship from Burns Crystal and The Herald, Sunday Herald and heraldscotland.com.
It takes its inspiration from Robert Burns who viewed everyone as equal and genuinely lived as a true humanitarian, as recognised in his famous lines: ‘That Man to Man, the world o’er, Shall brothers be for a’ that’.
Mr MacFarlane-Barrow was moved to establish Mary’s Meals after meeting a teenager in Malawi who said all he hoped for in life was enough food to eat, and go to school one day. Mary’s Meals now feeds more than one million school hildren in 12 countries every day.
He said: “It’s wonderful for Mary’s Meals to receive this recognition as a finalist for the Robert Burns Humanitarian Award, and in turn I’d like to recognise the many wonderful people who contribute to this work, giving their skills, time, donations, and prayers to allow us to continue reaching out to the next hungry child.”
Zannah Bukar Mustapha is a lawyer who works to make lives better for young people affected by the conflict between the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram and government forces in Nigeria.
He founded the Future Prowess Islamic Foundation, a primary school for orphans and less privileged children from both sides of the conflict.
David Nott has spent more than two decades working in danger zones around the world, earning him the nickname, the Indiana Jones of surgery.
Councillor Bill McIntosh, leader of South Ayrshire Council and chairman of the RBHA said: “Robert Burns was a man who viewed everyone as equal and genuinely lived as a true humanitarian devoted to the promotion of human welfare and to social reforms.
“Magnus, Zannah and David are outstanding examples of people who continue to do that.”