Event: An Evening with Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow.
Chair: John Redwood, Community Leader of L'Arche Edinburgh.
Venue: St Andrew's and St George's West Church, 13-17 George Street, Edinburgh, EH2 2PA.
Date: Wednesday 20 April 2016.
Time: Registration: 6.30pm-7pm. Event: 7pm-approximately 9pm.
Event Description: Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow is the founder and CEO of Mary’s Meals.
He has lived in Argyll, Scotland, since the age of nine and began his career as a fish farmer. However, when the Balkans conflict was making headlines in the early 1990s, Magnus and his brother Fergus were moved to help.
The brothers’ appeal for aid to deliver to conflict-hit Bosnia-Herzegovina was intended as a one-off, but quickly gathered momentum, driving Magnus to set up Scottish International Relief (SIR).
In the following years the work of SIR took Magnus across Europe to Romania, where he founded a children’s home, and then to war-torn Liberia. In 2002 he was visiting famine-struck Malawi when he met a family whose situation would alter the course of his work, and led to the founding of Mary’s Meals.
Magnus was named one of 2010's ‘Top Ten Heroes’ by broadcaster CNN, received an OBE in the 2011 New Year’s Honours list and has been awarded Honorary Degrees by Glasgow Caledonian University, University of Hull and University of Stirling.
Magnus played shinty for Glenorchy Camanachd Club and was capped four times by Scotland at senior International level.
Magnus is married to Julie, a trained nurse from Inverness. She became his co-driver on some of the first deliveries of aid to Bosnia in 1993, and has been devoted to the ever since. They live in Dalmally with their seven children.
Recent Awards: 2015: Number 6 on The Tablet’s Top 100 list of lay Catholics.
2015: TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people list.
2014: Human Life, Human Rights and Human Dignity Award (on behalf of the Oireachtas-based Human Dignity Group).
Cost: £10/£8 (Concessions)/£3 (Students).
Contact: Neill Walker, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., 0131 331 4469.