The Asian Human Rights Commission congratulates the initiative of the “Community Kitchen”, which is being promoted by a number of groups and persons as a response to the growing malnutrition and food crisis in Sri Lanka. This food crisis is the direct result of the collapse of the economy due to the inability of the government to fulfill its obligations to pay back the loans and interests taken from foreign sources in the past. Sri Lanka has now declared that it has entered into a Default Stage, which means it is considered as an unreliable country from the point of view of paying back of foreign debts. As a result of measures taken under these circumstances, the country is unable to buy oil, gas, power supplies, and all other basic necessities. All these items are difficult to obtain and with huge price rises. As a result, prices of all the food items have also risen rocket high.
There is a growing complaint from low income groups that they are unable to provide food for their families. Thus, the issue of food, preoccupies the mind of Sri Lankans particularly of low income groups in the months to come.
The Community Kitchen is an initial attempt to try to address this issue. In several places dinner will be provided on several days as an initial attempt to begin to address this problem. The target groups are lowest income groups.
It is to be hoped that this program will find support from others, and similar programs may arise in different parts of the country in order to avoid a situation of acute malnutrition or even starvation. For details on the Community Kitchen program, kindly see the YouTube presentations published by the SL VLOG.
