Gerard Butler shares meal with children in Haiti on Mary’s Meals visit

Hollywood star Gerard Butler has shared a meal with pupils in Haiti who are being helped by school feeding charity Mary’s Meals.

The Scottish actor travelled to the Caribbean with Mary’s Meals founder and global chief executive, Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, to see the charity’s work first hand.

Mary’s Meals feeds 1,361,586 children every school day in 17 countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe and the Caribbean.

Mr Butler joined pupils at Ecole Communautaire Saint Michel de Morne Mouton in the town of Mirebalais in Haiti’s Central Plateau to try Mary’s Meals food for himself and see the impact the project makes.

He said: “Mary’s Meals is such a simple idea. I’m inspired by the genius behind it, and how it promotes responsibility in everybody.

“It’s a very efficient way to essentially enhance the lives of so many in poor countries and it can be developed and extended so cheaply.

“I’ve been cheered up no end by these beautiful souls who, despite living in a country that has gone through so much hardship, have nothing but love to give.

“Communities are transformed by what Mary’s Meals does to feed children in a place of education. I’ve seen it in action in Liberia and now Haiti.”

In Haiti, local volunteers prepare a nutritious school meal of rice and beans with a tasty sauce made from vegetables and fish for 41,831 pupils every school day.

The charity began feeding 200 children in Malawi in 2002 and has since expanded around the world, beginning school feeding in Haiti in 2006.

Following the recent visit Mr MacFarlane-Barrow said: “It’s been a very moving few days meeting the children of Haiti whose lives are being changed by Mary’s Meals.”

It costs £13.90 to feed a child with Mary’s Meals for a whole school year and more information can be found at marysmeals.org.uk.