your family update
You Backed them and things began to change
“I carried hardship from childhood. Now I worry my children will go through the same things I did.”
Niranjani lives in Batticaloa in the East of Sri Lanka, with her husband and their two children. One child is in the 9th grade and the other is in the 2nd grade. The family of four shares a hut that was left empty by someone else, just two or three houses from where Niranjani’s sister lives. It isn’t a place they own or rent. It’s simply where they could stay.
Growing up, Niranjani’s home life was hard. Her parents struggled, and that shaped a lot of how she sees things now. She hoped that getting married would change things for her, but the financial pressure didn’t go away. It followed her into this chapter of her life too.
Right now, the family depends entirely on her husband’s daily wage work in the Nalveli area. Whatever he earns in a day is what they have for everything; food, school costs, and the basics of getting by. There’s no second income, and the work isn’t always steady. Niranjani manages the household within whatever comes in.
Keeping the children in school is one of the things she holds firmly to, even when it’s tight. Notebooks, fees, tuition – those costs add up, and there are days when there just isn’t enough. When that happens, her husband still sends the children to school and tells them there’s nothing available. He doesn’t pull them out. He just sends them anyway.
There’s also no toilet on the property. That’s something they deal with every day and can’t fix yet. They don’t own their home and can’t afford to build one right now, but they’re slowly putting something aside to get there. What Niranjani wants isn’t big. Just two rooms, with the same basic things that other families have. That would be enough. And they are working towards it.
What she carries with her most is the fear that her children will grow up facing what she faced. She watched her parents struggle and she didn’t want that for herself. Now she doesn’t want it for them either. That’s what she’s working toward: a home of their own and children who don’t have to carry the same weight she did.