Mary’s Meals has been able to deliver a unique bonus to young people it works with in Liberia, an African country which is still reeling from the effects of a brutal civil war.

The charity, which provides school meals for children in some of the world’s poorest countries, has linked up with the family of the late Motherwell player Phil O’Donnell, whose sudden death in 2007 shocked Scottish football.

After his death, fans carpeted Motherwell’s ground Fir Park in shirts and scarves as a tribute, and the mementos were eventually passed to the player’s widow Eileen. Her children attend a school in Hamilton which had entered a partnership with Mary’s Meals, with pupils gathering their old backpacks to send to children in Africa.

Mrs O’Donnell and her family then spent months sorting through the huge collection of Motherwell jerseys, cleaning and ironing them and weeding out any in poor condition. They were donated to the Education for Children foundation and Mary’s Meals which sent the strips to Liberia. With limited call for scarves in West Africa, these were diverted to children in Romania.

Many Liberian children are directly affected by the legacy of the civil war. Some have lost parents, or missed out on an education, others are afflicted by the widespread rural poverty. Some are former child soldiers. Mary’s Meals feeds 15,000 children in the country as well as supporting other community projects. Many are also obsessed with football, and the ability to have matching team strips has helped build team spirit and bring people together, the charity says.

As playing football is a highlight of being at school for many of the young people, the charity believes the gift of a strip can directly help in encouraging them to stick at their studies.

As well as providing school meals, the charity collects backpacks donated by schools such as the one in Hamilton, which are sent out with useful school items. The O’Donnell family’s initiative has been so well received that Mary’s Meals is now appealing to other organisations and clubs to consider making similar donations, and and has set up a dedicated webpage for this purpose.

Liesbeth Glas, the charity’s country director in Liberia, helped organise the delivery of the Motherwell tops to local teams. She said: “Football strips are wanted and appreciated so much here. The team who received the Motherwell shirts were told about where they had come from and why some of the shirts had messages written on them, and they were touched, especially by the thought that something good could come out of something so sad.”

Mary Downie, a Mary’s Meals volunteer who has just returned from Liberia, says: “Football is a favourite occupation in Liberia, and is important to the older boys in particular. They are very proud of their tops. If they own a football top, that’s what they will wear all the time – even to church.”

“In the villages, you will see kiddies with no shoes playing on bits of scrap ground. They will play football with anything – any round thing at all. I remember walking through one village and a little boy shouted out to me ‘Give me a football!’.

“Children who receive backpacks from Mary’s Meals get so excited if they discover a tennis ball inside – that is definitely going to be used as a football.”

As a result of publicity on the club’s website one fan has since been in touch with the charity after seeing his shirt being worn by a youngster from a team member of Williams Community FC from Bomi County, a local team formed from a community of internally displaced people whose previous homes were destroyed during the civil war.

Demand for the shirts has been so high that Mary’s Meals has had to get a local sports coach to check that groups which receive them are genuine teams as it has not been unheard of for groups to make up a team, just to get hold of the claret and amber shirts.

Other countries in which the charity works, such as Malawi, have not been sent football strips because there are existing local businesses which sell kits, and it does not want to have a negative effect on their trade.

For more information about donating football strips, visit www.marysmeals.org/football_strips.html