Celtic Quick News will be 10 years old next year and to mark the occasion, through Mary’s Meals, we’re going to construct a kitchen and shelter facility at the Kholoni Primary School in Mchinji, Central Malawi, which currently has no food preparation facilities.
A brick-built building, the kitchen will consist of one main cooking area with two small locked storerooms. In one, firewood for the stoves will be kept and, the other will store food and utensils. The kitchen will be fully equipped with stoves, pots, serving equipment, mugs and spoons and the 1221 children will be provided with a daily meal of a vitamin-enriched maize porridge. The kitchen will also have teaching facilities, to allow it to be used as a classroom outside meal times.
17% of people in the world live in extreme poverty (less than $1.25 per day) but there is plenty of good news, the proportion of world living in this condition halved in last 20 years (this was a UN Millennium Development Target). Life expectancy (at birth) of low income people in 1990 was 52, but in 2011 it was 60. Infant mortality dropped by a third during this period and maternal mortality almost halved.
Since humans first walked the earth a significant proportion of them have lived in extreme poverty, but while someone once said, “the poor will always be with us”, for the first time ever the decades ahead could see all of humanity escape from extremely poverty.
Malawi, according to the UN the 17th least developed nation on earth, is one of the world’s extreme poverty front lines, but even here, the trend is encouraging. In 1990 child mortality between 0-5 years was 244 deaths per 1000 live births. By 2000 this had dropped to 174 per 1000. Last year the figure was 71 deaths per 1000 from 0-5 years. The UK passed that figure more than 70 years ago, but the rate of improvement in Malawi is nothing short of incredible. It is fertile ground for the right kind of help.
Mary’s Meals, a Scottish charity established in 2002, feeds 822,142 kids in 16 countries every day. They keep costs low and employ local staff in kitchens, ensuring 93% of money donated reaches those in need, possibly the highest rate of any comparable organisation. It costs £7 for Mary’s Meals to feed a child in Malawi – for a whole year. 20% of Malawi’s children (600k) are fed by the organisation, often their only meal of the day.
In 2012, a sample of 44 schools found that enrolment had increased by 30% two years after the introduction of Mary’s Meals. Academic achievement improves too. The benefit is not just escape from hunger, it is access to education for children who would otherwise have to work for food. It also provides an increase in productivity and economic capacity when the children enter the workforce.
CQteN St Patrick’s Day Party
The kitchen will cost £7000 and I’ve told Mary’s Meals we’ll raise enough money by St Patrick’s Day, which gives us three months. We have a lot of work to do but the focal point will be the CQteN Dinner on Friday, 14 March 2014, which will be the biggest and best St Patrick’s Day Party in Scotland.
We’ve hired the Kerrydale Suite at Celtic Park. Tickets are available for £50, tables of 10 are also available. To reserve a ticket or table email me, celticquicknews@gmail.com. The event has been discussed in the comments section for some weeks without a formal launch and we quickly sold out the smaller capacity of the Kerrydale Suite. We have now taken the entire suite so additional tickets are available.
Between now and then there will be the odd auction to help us along, and we will continue to support the work of the Celtic Foundation (who have a Children’s Hospice Association Scotland auction on now), the Kano Foundation, and the many needy causes a lot closer to home than Malawi.
The UN are currently considering Development Targets for 2030, with the eradication of extreme poverty likely to feature. Poverty is a complex subject, so even after 2000 years development, we know there will always be comparative poverty, but within our Generation of Domination, extreme poverty, less than $1.25 per day existence, could be eradicated.
There is no more appropriate way to mark the 10th anniversary of the blog. This will be our payback for all the hours, days, weeks and months of pleasure (and toil) we’ve gotten out of the these pages over the years. Put 14th March 2014 in your diary, we’re having THE St Patrick’s Day party!
For more information on Mary’s Meals take a look at the video below:
Get your CQN Annual below. From now on £5 from every Annual sold will go to the CQN Malawi School Kitchen appeal.
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ryecatcher
12:59 on
14 December, 2013
For the Avoidance of Doubt…..
I posted a few weeks back asking if Reggae Star Maxi Priest was Paul Elliot’s cousin.
Nobody seemed to know (or care lol).
Had it confirmed that he is indeed that relative.
DoesanyonecareCSC
I do. I love reggae/rocksteady/ska/dub etc. That is Quite Interesting.
I wonder if we could make up a good band from the relatives of ex-Celts?
GillScott-HeronCSC
Afternoon all
Just read my post – sorry for the iffy grammar at various points. Just a few things I needed to say . Love the Celts!
Jimbo67 supporting Oscar Knox
I’m off to the game might have to swim part of the way.
NatKnow,
I think some of Jim Melroses relatives played flute……..
Help ma boab, Iran sent a sevconian into space and a different one came back !!!!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-25378313
Zombies now reincarnating.
This weather on back of Wednesday’s performance, reckon it will be lowest crowd of season.
Jimbo67
I agree with every word of that.
Now here is a thing– after a 6-1 defeat, a fine from UEFA, a lot of debate, criticism, annoyance and frustration throughout the week— circumstances out-with my control dictate that I now cannot go to Celtic Park this afternoon.
Unlike everything else that has happened this week– that makes me really really frustrated, annoyed and angry– yet I have no one to be frustrated annoyed and angry at— which in turn just makes me more frustrated annoyed and angry!
That is supporting Celtic for you when you just can’t get there!
.
WingCommander..
All is Good here..Been Very busy lately..Let me know Who is All going to Brisbane..I’m booking through MelbourneCelticSupporters on FB..Should be a Guid Craic..
email me the Catch up date/time and l will try and make it..Is Mick C going as l need to speak to Him..
KTF
001
BobbyRussell
13:39 on
14 December, 2013
NatKnow,
I think some of Jim Melroses relatives played flute……..
He’s related to Ian Anderson?
ThickAsABrickCSC
politically left leaning and take Celtic too seriously than is
probably healthy.
jimbo 67.
got me there pal ,enjoy the game.
Re tha abandoned game v Hibs in the 70s. Was at it. Don`t think it was a cup match. The replay was near the end of the season and I`m sure it was a draw, which was academic by that point as I think a former ex departed deid liquidated gone away team had the league in the bag by then.
Right, Big Coat Time
And I’ll be the one starting the singing from FS2 ;-)
.
Kilmarnock striker Kris Boyd is on the verge of taking on the mantle of leading goal scorer in Scottish top-flight football since the formation of the SPL
Boyd has not been so prolific as the ex-Celtic player as he has taken almost 100 games more to reach the milestone. Larsson racked up his tally during 221 SPL appearances for Celtic before going on to play for Barcelona and Manchester United :FACT
Summa
Favourite Uncle
Mrs McCann obviously didn’t teach that grammar well enough – ask Marie about her!
BRTH
Nae luck. Dont see you as the ranting at fellow CQNers because we haven’t scored in the first five minutes. But give it a go!
Jimbo67 supporting Oscar Knox
jimbo67
Brilliant post, it’s what we’re all about.
summa of sammi,
I’m over in WA, know a few guys in Melbourne, got a couple of brothers-in-law, one of them the uncle of Jamie Smith but don’t think I know Pat C that you are talking about.
AR
Jimbo
Post of the week by a country mile, very well said sir
Jimbo67…. Thanks.
I have been really frustrated at some of the childish behaviour on CQN recently.
I am sitting in the car next to Paradise with my wife and 2 young daughters. We are about to be soaked on the walk to the stadium. Its not easy trying to justify to them why they will walk in the pissing wet rain and this wind when they could be sitting in the house watching a Disney film but you Jimbo67 have made it easier for me.
We are Celtic supporters.
T’would appear I was wrong about us winning the replayed abandoned game v Hibs. Checking it out on Google, it was a 1-1 draw apparently.
Nostalgia aint what it used to be!
HH
#Celtic: Forster; Lustig, Ambrose, van Dijk, Izaguirre; Brown, Biton, Ledley, Commons; Stokes, Pukki
Subs: Zaluska, Matthews, Samaras, Fisher, Atajic, Henderson, Balde. (MH)
Neil has chosen ………
….. wisely.
.
AntipodeanRed..
Yea seen you were from Perth..Pat was from Clydebank..a few on here knew Him..Quite well know..
Last time l was in Perth was the Jinky tribute night..The night before his Funeral..Brilliant turn out..
Summa
Good to see Nir Biton in the starting lineup again. I have a good feeling about this lad
jimbo67
12:59 on 14 December, 2013
Brilliant Jimbo, you just confirmed why myself & so many others on here are off to watch Celtic today & get absolutely soaked…
Cheers buddy (not the elf).
Hx2
Jimbo67
Thanks for your uplifting post.
Over and Over!
Jimbo67
Post of the year on here , and in many ways its been a long year on this once great blog .
HH
BIG-CUP-WINNERS
12:25 on
14 December, 2013
Burghbhoy
The church is no doubt a force for good, most are. But deviants have always winkled their way into positions of influence and access to their targets. Deviants by name and nature.
*Agreed they are not priests who became pedos but vice versa, no different from any other organisations, sports or youth where adults have access to children.
As for attendances’ at Catholic churches plummeting, no over here in what was once called the “Belfast of North America” where Masses are being added and new churches being built due to the influx of immigrants mainly from the Balkans, Middle East and South America.
More chance in Scotland it’s down to laziness or a lifestyle that doesn’t suit going to the pineapple.
UOG
You’re a stats man
The stats for Pukki and Stokes playing together and either of them scoring must be awful
Summa,
Was it Pat Cassidy, that name rings a bell with me?
AR
.
Ar..
Yes..
Summa
Jimbo67,
I agree with every word. I thank Ghod too that I have had the privilege of having witnessed many of the moments you mention.
Like BRTH, I cannot be at Celtic Park today. It hurts.
Come on the Hoops