Mary’s Meals founder makes TIME 100

Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, our founder and CEO, has been named as one of TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world for 2015.

Magnus has been recognised for Mary’s Meals’ work in setting up school feeding projects in some of the world’s poorest communities.

The annual list includes many of the world’s most inspiring individuals, with 2015’s edition also honouring such influencers as President Barack Obama, Pope Francis, Malala Yousafzai and Hillary Clinton.

Magnus said: “It’s wonderful to be able to accept this honour on behalf of the thousands of people all around the world, who together are working to realise the Mary’s Meals vision – that every child should be able to receive at least one meal every day in their place of education.

“Today Mary’s Meals is feeding 989,791 children every school day across 12 countries but, with 57 million children around the world out of school and hundreds of millions suffering as a result of chronic hunger, our work is only just beginning. I’d like to invite others to join the Mary’s Meals movement, so that no child today will be without food and no child should miss school because of poverty.”

Gordon Brown, former UK Prime Minister and now UN special envoy for global education, has written the tribute to Magnus for TIME, saying: “His work began in Bosnia, but a visit to Malawi, where a child told him his dream was having enough to eat, cemented his mission: to get thousands of girls and boys to come to school by providing a meal. The impact has been breath-taking. [School] attendance figures have risen, by as much as 50% in some areas.”

The TIME 100, now in its 12th year, recognises the activism, innovation and achievement of the world’s most influential individuals. 

TIME’s Managing Editor Nancy Gibbs says: “The TIME 100 is a list of the world's most influential men and women, not its most powerful, though those are not mutually exclusive terms. While power is certain, influence is subtle. As much as this exercise chronicles the achievements of the past year, we also focus on figures whose influence is likely to grow, so we can look around the corner to see what is coming.”

Mary’s Meals sets up and runs school feeding programmes in communities where hunger and poverty prevent children from gaining an education. By providing one daily meal in a place of learning, children are attracted to the classroom where they can gain an education – which can be their ladder out of poverty in the future.

As we move closer to the milestone of feeding one million children every school day, a book written by Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow is set to be released by HarperCollins. The Shed That Fed A Million Children, which tells the remarkable story of the charity, will be published on May 21st (or May 26th in the USA and Canada).

The full TIME 100 list and related tributes will appear in the April 27th issue of TIME, available on newsstands and tablets from Friday, April 17th, and now at www.time.com/time100. Follow @TIME for updates about the list on Twitter, visit www.facebook.com/TIME, or use the hashtag #TIME100.