Scottish charity Mary’s Meals wins Spain’s Princess of Asturias Award

Scottish charity group Mary’s Meals has won a prestigious Spanish prize for its work feeding schoolchildren facing extreme poverty across the globe.

The jury that decides the Princess of Asturias Awards gave Mary’s Meals its Concord Prize for “its exemplary dedication to helping resolve some of the world’s most pressing problems”.

The charity, based in the Scottish village of Dalmally, started as Scottish International Relief in 1992 before taking on its current name in 2002 with its first school meals programme in Malawi.

It now helps more than 2.4 million schoolchildren eat every day in 18 different countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Middle East.

The 50,000-euro (£42,900) Concord Prize is one of eight awards, including for the arts, sciences and sports, handed out annually by the foundation named after Spanish Crown Princess Leonor.

Previous winners of the Concord Prize include Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, Spanish chef Jose Andres, and Spain’s health workers during the coronavirus pandemic.