Mary’s Meals has released a new short film showcasing one of the charity's ultimate success stories through its school feeding program. 

Lettie revisits the girl known as “Child 31” in a 2012 award-winning documentary, revealing how the program’s daily school meal offerings didn’t just keep a child alive, but actively propelled her from hunger and hopelessness to education, employment and breaking the same poverty cycle for her own child.

“It was important to us that, even in a story that starts where so many do for children in Malawi with empty stomachs and not enough strength to learn, it doesn't have to end that way. In the case of Lettie Saidi, she's graduated, she’s employed and she’s able to take care of her own son,” said Angela Chipeta-Khonje, the country director of Mary’s Meals Malawi. 

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“We wanted to go back and share (more) because it is no longer about her alone, but the whole family whose story has changed. In a big way, her son will never know hunger the way she did because she's had this chance.” 

Mary’s Meals has been serving daily school meals in Malawi since 2003, with more than 1,315,000 children now receiving its meals every school day, a figure Chipeta-Khonje said makes up more than a quarter of the country’s pre-primary and primary school children. 

However, Saidi’s story is typical of many children in Malawi who are unable to learn due to hunger. According to the World Food Programme’s 2025 Hunger Map, 6.8 million people are experiencing insufficient food consumption in the country. Major challenges such as high poverty levels, food inflation and frequent climatic shocks, as well as overcrowded classrooms, teacher shortages and lack of learning materials persist throughout the East African nation. 

While Saidi was one of those millions in 2012, following the death of her parents and while caring for her younger brothers at just 10 years old, Mary’s Meals intentionally set out to give a human face to the crisis through her story.

“ I want people to understand that every one of those numbers is a name of someone who is hungry, and our ambition is to keep saying those names. Every school day, until hunger itself stops deciding who gets a proper education, we will continue to mention names like Lettie,” Chipeta-Khonje said. 

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A true full-circle experience, the film also shares how Saidi now actively works for Mary’s Meals Malawi as a youth ambassador, helping to volunteer, fundraise and support her local Mary’s Meals office while sharing her experience with others.

The charity hopes her first-hand accounts of the benefits of the school meal program, both short- and long-term, can become both a genuinely inspiring success story as well as something of a mirror for others in similar positions in Malawi. 

“People hear Saidi and think, ‘This could be my own daughter.’  She's now standing in classrooms speaking about experiences that children are relating to — they are understanding that there is hope and that change is possible,” Chipeta-Khonje said.

It is that long-term investment in human capital, shown as tangible evidence by the film, that one meal in 2012 helped transform a child against the odds into a healthy graduate and future ambassador, that Mary’s Meals hopes to convey. 

As audiences celebrate the Saidis’ now-humanized and developed journey in Lettie, Mary’s Meals remains committed to the core priority of keeping its daily promise to not allow hunger to get in the way of education. 

Chipeta-Khonje hopes that as that mission continues, it does so under a deeper, empathic perception. 

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“This story didn't end at hunger, and so this is needed proof that the program works. People can hopefully see that a meal a day is just not charity. It's an investment that has return. We've been able to see that through Lettie,” she said. 

Lettie is available for free on YouTube.