DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS AT MARY’S MEALS

TAKE A LOOK AT THE ROLE…

Thank you for your interest in the role of Director of Communications. I hope you will find this pack informative and useful in supporting your decision to apply to join our team of staff, which exists to serve a global movement of people who are united around a simple mission; the provision of a daily meal in a place of education for the world’s poorest children.

This meal, cooked and served by local volunteers, meets the immediate need of the hungry child and, at the same time, plays a key role in encouraging them into the classroom where they gain an education that can set them free from poverty. Today we serve over 1.5 million children each school day in 18 of the world’s poorest countries. This global movement of ours is achieving something wonderful, each meal served is the product of a series of lots of ‘little acts of love’ carried out by people across many countries who freely give their time, money, skills or prayers and it is through that, that our movement grows.

Our work is named after Mary, the mother of Jesus, and our values and culture are rooted in and shaped by a Christian spirituality. We feel that the way we do things is as important as the end results. Ours is also a universal mission involving people of all faiths and none across the world. Everyone is invited to join and provide their own unique contribution to this work.

This role of Director of Communications is crucial to the growth of our movement and will have ultimate responsibility for  the development and implementation of our global communications strategy, including the development of innovative ways to reach new audiences, inspiring them and our extensive, global Mary’s Meals network to take action in support of our mission.

With 64 million children out of school around the world and a further 66 million attending school so hungry they’re not able to concentrate and learn, our work is only just beginning. Will you play a crucial part in shaping the future of Mary’s Meals and with it, the lives of thousands of children across the world?

Good luck with your application!

Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, CEO

This mission was born unexpectedly in 1992, when the MacFarlane-Barrow family, from their home (Craig Lodge Family House of Prayer) in Argyll, Scotland, launched a little appeal to help the people of Bosnia-Herzegovina, who were suffering because of the war there. An outpouring of incredible generosity in response to that first appeal meant that what was supposed to have been a ‘one-off’ delivery of aid grew into an organisation called Scottish International Relief which over the next 10 years supported various projects aimed at helping the poorest of the poor in several countries. The Mary’s Meals campaign was born in 2002 when Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow visited Malawi during an emergency response to a hunger crisis there and met a mother dying from AIDS. When Magnus asked her eldest son Edward what his dreams were in life, he replied simply: “I want to have enough food to eat and to go to school one day.”

This encounter was one of the key inspirations that led to the birth of Mary’s Meals recognising that millions of others like Edward were missing their education because of hunger. We came to believe that a daily school meal could help break this cycle of poverty and began to set up community owned school feeding programmes. This initiative soon became the sole focus of the organisation’s work and began to grow rapidly around the world. In 2012, Scottish International Relief officially changed its name to Mary’s Meals.

Focused on one goal – that every child receives a nutritious daily meal in a place of education, their simple but effective approach has gathered significant momentum since the organisation’s conception in 2002, when 200 children received a daily meal. In 2020 Mary’s Meals is now feeding 1,504,471 world’s poorest children every day they attend school in 18 countries, across Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe and the Caribbean.

The organisation’s core values, shown below, underpin all their work and should be shared by all those involved in carrying out the mission, from those involved in fundraising right through to volunteers living and working in the impoverished communities where as an organisation, Mary’s Meals help.

• We are confident in the innate goodness of people
• We respect the dignity of every human being and family life
• We believe in good stewardship of resources entrusted to us

Mary’s Meals’ full statement of values can been viewed here.

This role of Director of Communications is crucial to the growth of our movement and will have ultimate responsibility for  the development and implementation of our global communications strategy, including the development of innovative ways to reach new audiences, inspiring them and our extensive, global Mary’s Meals network to take action in support of our mission.

Interested candidates should provide a tailored CV and covering letter to Douglas Adam at [email protected]

Your covering letter should make a compelling case for why you feel motivated to work for Mary’s Meals in this role, as well as giving a concise overview of your most relevant skills and experience, and should fill no more than two pages of A4.

Should you have questions prior to submitting an application please contact Douglas Adam, Head of Public and Not for Profit Practice, at Livingston James on 0131 220 2209.

The recruitment of this position is managed by Livingston James