your family update
You Backed them and things began to change
“Being poor is the one thing in my life I could never break free from. It’s always there.”
Indrani lives in Vilanthottam, a village in Batticaloa, Eastern Sri Lanka, with her husband Prabagaran and their four children, 2 girls and 2 boys. The family of six lives in the house of Indrani’s younger sister, as they do not have a place of their own.
Prabagaran does daily wage agricultural work. He sprays fields, harvests paddy, builds field boundaries, and sows during planting season. The work comes and goes with the seasons, and the income is not steady. With six people to feed and care for, what comes in does not cover what goes out.
When money runs short, Indrani borrows. The family takes loans to cover basic things like food and school costs. When those loans come due and there is nothing to repay them with, she takes a new loan to covers the old one. That is how they manage. Indrani says poverty is the one thing in her life she cannot forget, and that the debt sits at the very bottom of it.
The children are still in school and she is working to keep them there. The third child has finished enough schooling to receive a ranking and has applied for a university placement, waiting to hear back.
Another child is sitting the grade 10 exam. 1 child has finished a Junior Certificate. These bring Indrani joy. The children’s futures are what Indrani is focused on, and she names all 4 of them when she talks about what matters most right now.
Indrani dreams of all four children finishing their studies and finding good work. She wants to watch them start a happy life and to be there when they do. This is what she looks forward to the most in the future.
