Scottish charity Mary's Meals wins Spain's Princess of Asturias award

MADRID — Scottish charity group Mary’s Meals won a prestigious Spanish prize on Wednesday 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 program 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 ($54,000) Concord Prize is one of eight awards, including for the arts, sciences and sports, handed out annually by the foundation named for Spanish Crown Princess Leonor.

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