Mary and Martha

I am watching a documentary about an extraordinary young girl called Martha Paine. You may remember her, because she hit the headlines a few months ago because her blog get her into trouble. She started her blog talking about her school dinners http://neverseconds.blogspot.co.uk/, but was sometimes critical of the quantity and quality of the food. The local authority banned her from taking photographs in the dining hall.

This provoked an outrage, not least because she was only being honest about the meals that she had. Sometimes, she would be positive about them. The coverage - helped by social media - meant that she had thousands of hits on her blog, but it did not stop there, because she had realised that her school meal problems were nothing compared to other peoples.

She had set up a JustGiving page to help a local charity called Marys Meals. This was a charity with a very simple aim, which was to provide children who go to school in Malawi with a meal, which was often the only meal they would get in the day. It was an incentive to encourage them into school, which was the best way to get them out of the poverty trap. Martha had hoped to raise something like £2000 for them, if people would be kind enough to give, her target was £7000. It seemed like a positive thing to do to help others.

The publicity for her blog caused donations through the site to rocket. It seemed that people heard of Marthas problems, and supported her by giving money to Marys meals. Giving to the sum of nearly £120K. She has just returned from Malawi after seeing some of the work that this money has done.

What I find interesting is the names here, and the inverse relationship to their biblical namesakes. In the Bible, Martha and Mary are sisters, Martha being a busy housewife while Mary was sitting listening to Jesus. In the same sort of way, it seems to me that Martha Paine listens to comments, problems, issues, and discusses them, while Marys Meals does something practical without any complexity, philosophy or strings.

The thing is, they need each other. Marys need Marthas, and Marthas need Marys. This particular example just goes to show what can be achieved when they work together.