How did this all start...

Sri Lanka was already crippled by a civil war that lasted over three decades and the post-war poor governance for the past decade when the Covid pandemic worsened its people's livelihood. On top of that, for the past few years, Sri Lanka is facing the worst economic crisis in its history due to unprecedented corruption and miss management of the country under the undemocratic rule of one family.

While the Sri Lankan currency suffer globally, the food prices and basic needs including medicine soared leaving entire villages, communities and minority groups to starve and die without medicine, food, fuel or electricity. 

Low-income urban, semi-urban and rural communities are struggling to meet their basic needs. The plantation workers, who used to sweat all day for a small daily wage just enough to provide one meal for their family, are currently out of work, any help, or hope to survive with their young ones crying from hunger. The children in these most desperate communities are now on the verge of malnutrition and have completely stopped attending school. The few who manage to attend the school are too weak to carry out any activities in the classroom and faint under the hot sun leaving teachers helpless.

Our Story

Our journey begins after The Ceylon youth movement receives a call for help through one of the activists in Matara Pasgoda Kirilipana estate. A small group of activists from the Ceylon youth movement decide to take action after listening to this story with the determination, we will not let them die without food.

Ceylon Community Kitchen was born with this beautiful idea of providing a meal for the whole community where a family cannot prepare a whole meal alone at home. By shearing all the ingredients and firewood with the help of our activists they were able to feed those starving kids, working as a community, a team in one big kitchen.

First, the families, friends and a few villagers donated anything and everything they could spare to start the first kitchen in the Kirilipana estate, a remote village in the southern province on the fourth of July 2022. Today we are so glad to announce that we were able to provide food for the whole community for the past  20 days with the help of a few generous people, the Ceylon youth movement team and the community.

Our team started getting more calls from different rural areas, and communities in need through activists, school teachers, clergy and parents who are desperately struggling to provide for their young ones. We want to facilitate those who need a meal, who has not eaten for days, and the innocent children cry out of starvation. We want them to build a kitchen for their community where everybody can come and prepare food, where religion, caste, class, and language will not divide them but rally them to survive a crisis.

We will continue this operation aiming to expand the community kitchen concept in other villages, other plantations and in the areas where the economic crisis has hit the worst with the hope of a better tomorrow free of hunger.

How you can join us

Unfortunately, most of the people in Sri Lanka are not in a position to donate to these community kitchens affected by the economic crisis without discrimination. Otherwise, a much more generous nation is faced with a survival struggle today, yet we receive a lot of help and donations within the country, more than we can expect.

As a start, our goal is to provide a balanced nutritious meal per day in each kitchen for roughly 50 to 75 children. Considering the daily rising food prices, we have an estimated 250 rupees for a single meal excluding the few vegetables and other ingredients the community can muster on their own.

For one community kitchen to provide one meal for a day can cost approximately 13,000 Sri Lankan rupees to 19,000 depending on how many children are in that particular community.

Dry food, basic kitchen equipment or any small contribution to our fund would give us a chance to fight for these children. Write us an email or contact any of our activists below to join hands with us.

We will be updating the blog with stories filled with many happy smiles. We respect your love and effort to help us. The distribution and usage of funds will be displayed here with much transparency assuring that your help will reach the children in need.

Please share our story as much as you can so another kind soul can give us a helping hand. Follow our diary for daily updates. Add a comment to share your ideas and support for us to better this operation.

Email
ceyloncommunitykitchen@gmail.com

Kasthuri    
+94770425588
Organizer Kirilipana Ceylon community kitchen, Sri Lanka

Pavithra   
+31687733510
Organizer Ceylon community kitchen, The Netherlands

Namini        
+94713184229
Organizer ‘Udav Almariya’ (Help cabinet) Sri Lanka

Lahiru        
+94717176924
Organizer Ceylon Youth Movement, Sri Lanka

Samadhi    
+94715780112
Organizer Ceylon Youth Movement, Sri Lanka 

 

Donate 

Acc Name         CEYLON DEVELOPMENT AND INFORMATION COLLECTIVE
Bank                 SAMPATH BANK
Branch              THALAHENA
Acc. Number     021110004483

If you are making a direct donation to our fund, please let us know through a simple text to one of our activists or an email. It would help us to maintain the transparency of the project.

 

Thank you
Ceylon Community Kitchen Team