Once fed by a school meal, Lettie now feeds hope in Malawi

Vatican News marked World Porridge Day on October 10 with the story of Lettie, a young Malawian woman whose life was transformed by a daily school meal. When Mary's Meals first met Leticia, known to many as Lettie, she was 11 years old. Her story was first told in Child 31, the award-winning 2012 documentary that introduced audiences around the world to child hunger in Malawi. More than a decade later, Mary's Meals returned to her story in a new documentary called Lettie, released earlier this year.

Today, Vatican News reports, Lettie is an educated, working mother. She works for Mary's Meals Malawi and serves as a Youth Ambassador, sharing the stories of children who, like her, receive a daily meal at school. Her son is thriving, and neither he nor his mother faces the hunger that once threatened to define her future and her brothers' futures.

Angela Chipeta-Khonje, Country Director of Mary's Meals Malawi, told Vatican News that Lettie's story is both extraordinary and deeply familiar. "She is one of those children who went through hunger, but she overcame it thanks to a meal that she was getting every day at school," she said. She added that it is a story giving hope to many other children in Malawi.

The need remains great. Vatican News cites the World Food Programme's figure that 6.8 million people in Malawi are experiencing insufficient food consumption. Most families depend on smallholder farming and rain-fed agriculture, which leaves them exposed to drought, flooding and other shocks. Mary's Meals began serving school meals in Malawi in 2003. Today more than 1.3 million children across the country receive a meal every school day, and Vatican News reports that every teacher surveyed saw fewer dropouts and better retention among pupils who were fed.

Chipeta-Khonje says the meals meet immediate hunger but also give children the energy and the reason to stay in school, which she says breaks the cycle of poverty. Over two decades, millions of children have passed through the program, and many have come back years later to tell how a daily meal kept them in school and helped them find work and support their families. She hopes viewers of the film see more than one woman's journey. "It doesn't have to be huge," she said. "Small acts of love can do so much for so many children across the world." Matthew 25:35 reminds us whom we serve when we feed the hungry. Thank God for Lettie, and pray for the children eating porridge in Malawi's schools today.