Scottish Catholic Observer

The founder of the Scottish charity Mary’s Meals has been awarded an OBE in the New Year honours list.

Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow (42) said he was ‘humbled’ to receive the OBE for his services to the charity.

“I feel that the honour is a recognition of the hard work of everyone who has been involved in the Mary’s Meals journey,” he said.

The OBE tops a rollercoaster year for Mary’s Meal, based in Argyll and Glasgow, which began when the charity’s project in Haiti was dramatically hit by the island’s earthquake and ended with Mr McFarlane-Barrow’s nomination as CNN’s hero of the year in the US.

Mary’s Meals is a school feeding projects that helps in communities where poverty and hunger prevent children from gaining an education. It has grown grew from a tiny group of Scottish International Relief (SIR) volunteers in 1992 -when the Bosnian conflict in Eastern Europe was at its height and Magnus and his brother Fergus were moved to organise a local appeal for blankets and food-to the international charity it is today, strongly rooted in the family’s Catholic Faith.

The charity now provides daily meals in school for more than 450,000 children in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe.

Other Scots honoured include Scottish Labour MP for Aberdeen South Anne Begg (55), who has been made a dame in for services to disabled people, and singer Annie Lennox (56), who has been given an OBE for her work fighting AIDS and poverty in Africa.

For more on Scots on the 2011 New Year honours list visit: http://news.stv.tv/scotland/217716-scots-on-the-2011-new-year-honours-list/