your family update
You Backed them and things began to change
“Some days we get by on one meal. I borrow, I work, I pay it back, then I borrow again.”
Nisansala is 37 and lives in Mahiyangana with her 16-year-old child. It’s just the two of them. She’s been raising her child alone since her divorce eight years ago, when the child was only eight years old.
Nisansala does farming and day labour to keep things going. Her child is studying hard this year, sitting for the O/L exams, and the school and tuition costs add up quickly. Nisansala covers all of it on her own. There’s no second income to fall back on.
Most days, money is tight. Food is a real problem. She and her child get by on one or two meals a day when things are stretched. When the farming or day labour money runs out before the next work comes, she takes food and daily goods on credit from a local shop. She pays it back when she earns, then borrows again when she needs to.
She also borrows from other people to cover what the shop credit doesn’t reach. When things get too hard, she turns to her parents for help rather than let things slide. She doesn’t miss what she owes. She pays it back and keeps going.
The hardest moments for Nisansala are when her child asks for something and she can’t give it straight away. School costs money, tuition costs money, and there have been many times she couldn’t meet those needs the moment they came up. She keeps working to close that gap.
Nisansala wants to get her child through school and into a good life. She also wants to build a house and settle in one place, because right now her living situation isn’t permanent. She’s working toward all of it at once, carrying the farming, the day labour, the debt, and the school costs, because she wants her child’s life to move forward and she wants a stable home to come back to.