Carlops’ interest was aroused in 2012 by a message from the charity Mary’s Meals that £6.50 could feed a child in school in Malawi for a whole year, provided that the school had a safely designed kitchen.   That cost is now £9, thanks to inflation, but remains minuscule by UK standards.

A community-wide group challenged the Carlops community to raise £7,000 to allow Mary’s Meals to build one more school kitchen – the Carlops Kitchen!  The project was highly successful: within six months, £12,000 had been donated, so it was decided to aim for two kitchens and then to transfer any further income to Mary’s Meals’ year-round feeding programme.  In 2020, this project has raised over £25,000 and is still attracting donations.

One of the schools which received a Carlops kitchen saw such an increase in enrolment that pupil numbers outstripped classroom and other accommodation. Carlops responded by raising more money in 2016-18 to build an extra classroom and a new latrine block.