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Mantasha, 12, has had a difficult childhood. Her mother sadly died of tuberculosis when Mantasha was just six years old, and her father was left disabled and unable to work after he also contracted the same disease. Mantasha relies on her sisters who are both working in garment factories to support the family following the death of their mother.
With the support of Mary’s Meals, Mantasha has the hope of achieving her dreams of building a school and teaching there now she has access to education and food.
Once Mantasha’s family had moved to Delhi, she was given the opportunity to begin education. Unable to enrol in a government school because the family had no internal immigration papers, Mantasha enrolled at yaan Sarovar, an informal school in Bhalswa Dairy, the slum area where the family now lives. Mantasha doesn’t live very near to the school building, which sits behind the enormous rubbish dump, where many of the families here work. But Gyaan Sarovar School also runs informal classrooms around the slum, to enable as many children as possible to access an education.
Mary’s Meals supports this school by providing a hot meal each school day to every student. The 12-year-old says: “I could only eat small portions at first. But then I started to see the value of having nutrition and I could see the difference it was making for me in class.”
School has been life-changing for Mantasha, who is beginning to dream about the prospect of facilitating change for future generations of girls just like her. She says: “Only after I came here did I start to feel hope that I could be educated. I want to be a teacher and give the same hope to other children. My dream is to build a school and then teach there.”
We are partnering with the farmers who grow our rice to secure a more sustainable future, supporting them to adopt new approaches which balance human needs for food with economic viability and preservation of natural resources and habitats.
Parwinder Singh is one of many Basmati farmers in India who have adopted the AWD method. The Alternate Wet Drying system reduces the amount of time rice plants are flooded, reducing methane emissions by 45% when compared to continuously flooded paddy fields, saves water and increases crop yields.
This not only helps Parwinder make more money with an above market fair wage in a poverty stricken area, but helps food security in the area and has knock on effects for the wider community. He says, “I am very happy with this (AWD), its helped us save a lot. I urge all farmers to make the most of it.”
Originally from Bihar – one of the most impoverished states of India – Zareena moved to Delhi looking for work and was lucky enough to find an opportunity that she loves through Mary’s Meals, cooking in the kitchen and providing a hot meal to each student in education, supporting their learning and futures.
All Mary’s Meals cooks are volunteers, but in India they are paid a small stipend to help with daily expenses. Without positions like these, there are very few opportunities for work, meaning many are forced to scavenge and sell junk from nearby rubbish heaps to survive. Mary’s Meals’ school feeding programmes encourage all children to attend school and girls make up 50% of the children in school across their global programme. This is important as only 49% of countries across the world have an even gender split in primary education. This means Zareena is not only proud to be supporting other girls, but also means Zareena can be proud to be supporting the next generation too.
Zareena works alongside her male helper, Chandan, also originally from Bihar, who delivers the meals to other centres and schools in struggling conditions.
The meals Zareena cooks mostly include rice due to its abundance and being readily available through Mary’s Meals, making Tilda extremely proud to contribute to improved lives and making a world of change.