your family update
You Backed them and things began to change
“He used to come home drunk and beat me, so I took the kids and left. Now I raise them alone by myself.”
Chandra is a 47 years old single parent and lives in a small village called Pillayarady on the Eastern coast of Sri Lanka with her children. She has three children. Two of them are already married and live separately. She mainly cares for the youngest girl now, who is still a small child.
Some years ago, her husband left the family. He had a drinking problem and there were lots of fights at home. Chandra said he would come home drunk and start fighting. Sometimes he would hit her. After putting up with it for many years, she decided she couldn’t live like that anymore. So she separated from him and started raising the children herself.
At that time, the children were still very young. One was sixteen, one was thirteen and the small one was six. And Chandra had to take care of everything for the family.
She started doing domestic work in nearby houses. She’ll leave home early in the morning to take the bus to work. She does yard work, helps with the cooking and does other household chores. She works the whole day and comes back in the evening.
She also grinds flour to make and sells snacks like egg puffs to earn extra money. Even with all that work she does, the money is not always enough. Some days she buys food on credit from the local shop and pays it back later when money comes.
Chandra keeps working because she wants her daughter to grow up well. She hopes to do more work, save some money and build a house, so that her daughter can have a safe place to live in the future.
She hopes that she will be able to give her child a better life.