your family update
You Backed them and things began to change
“I borrowed money just so my children could eat.”
Nishanthini lives in the East of Sri Lanka with her partner and their three children. The eldest is in grade 7, the second is in grade 3, and the youngest is in grade 1. She’s the one keeping this family going, and she’s been doing it largely on her own for some time now.
Her husband used to work in Colombo. He decided later to go abroad but that didn’t work out. When he returned from Colombo, they took out a loan and tried to set up a chicken-rearing business together. But during the building of the coop, he badly injured his thumb. It never healed properly. He can’t use it at all now, and he only finds daily labour work two or three days a month. The income he brings in is very small.
Nishanthini cooks at a school to bring in steady money. She also raises chickens at home and sells the eggs. That’s how she covers the household. All the bills, all the children’s needs – it falls to her. The loans they took out to pay for the hospital and to get the chicken coop built are still sitting over them, with interest.
There was a stretch of about six months where she had no money at all. She borrowed just to put food on the table. She kept going anyway. All three kids stayed in school through all of it.
It’s been a heavy load to carry. She describes the weight of it as suffocating – watching her husband unable to work, managing everything herself, not knowing what comes next. But she hasn’t stopped. She goes to work, she tends the chickens, she looks after the children, and she chips away at the debt when she can.
What she wants most is some breathing room – a point where the debt is lighter, the children are steady in school, and she isn’t asking herself where she’ll end up. To live with peace of mind.