your family update
You Backed them and things began to change
“We work so hard, but there’s nothing to show for it – not even enough to eat.”
Poomani lives in Batticaloa, in the East of Sri Lanka, with her daughters and grandchildren. The house has a tiled roof and they’re living in it, but there’s no toilet inside and no bathing area. For now, the family uses an outdoor space near a neighbour’s tree.
The main income comes from her grandson. He does daily wage work. Poomani is raising her daughters and grandchildren through all of this. She talks about the hard work as something she’s done for a long time, and what weighs on her is that there’s so little to show for it. There’s not always enough money for food. There aren’t supplies. When things are tight, the family just keeps going, because there’s no other way through it.
When the money runs out, the family takes on small debts to get through the day. There’s no backup plan mentioned and no other income coming in. They manage because they have to.
What Poomani wants isn’t complicated. She wants to build a proper room for bathing and for the toilet, so the family doesn’t have to go outside. And beyond that, she wants enough food on the table. She isn’t asking for wealth. She just wants the work they do every day to be enough to eat and to live on.