THIS WEEK IN ASIA: In crisis-hit Sri Lanka, community kitchens are dishing out help to malnourished children.
by Dimuthu Attanayake
- More than 6.2 million people from Sri Lanka are estimated to be moderately acute food insecure
- As the food security situation deteriorated, private organisations conjured up ways to help
With food and fuel prices soaring, protests on Sri Lanka’s streets and her debt-saddled country engulfed by political crisis, Geethika Dilrukshi’s urgent priority each day was to provide nutrition for her underweight five-year-old son.
But over recent weeks, her son has slowly got heavier, like other malnourished kids at his preschool after receiving a full daily meal for free from a community kitchen for preschoolers.
Last month, year-on-year food inflation hit 95 per cent, meaning millions of families have had to forgo basics, while putting the onus on Sri Lanka’s civil society to fill the void left by the state.
More than 6.2 million people from Sri Lanka are estimated to be moderately acute food insecure, according to a September report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations and the World Food Programme, while tens of thousands are in immediate need of assistance.