“It’s more than a meal. We are creating a home,” says Debs Edirisinghe, Founder and Director of Child Action Lanka (CAL). “A place where the children can enjoy the happy feeling of being loved and full.”

As the main donor, Feed The Hungry bring stability to CAL, for which they are incredibly grateful. This means consistency and continuity in providing a daily meal for the children… through riots, COVID and natural disasters. Not a day has gone by when CAL have been unable to feed hungry children.

“We have never ONCE, not had a meal to give a child, thanks to the generous giving of our Australian friends,” says Debs, who has spent 18 years caring for the children of Sri Lanka.

Sahan is 9 years old and has 5 younger siblings.

From Monday to Friday, when the CAL centres are open, all is good because Sahan and his brothers and sisters can get a meal. But weekends are hard. On Saturday and Sunday, he is left to feed and care for the younger children while his parents go to work.

In order to buy food for himself and his siblings, Sahan sells pocket calendars and little cards. With that money, he’s able to buy one pack of fried rice and chicken that he shares amongst them all.

That makes him feel like he’s the hero of the week,” says Debs. “He’s been able to earn and provide this one parcel of fried rice for all five of them… he’s over the moon. It’s something that he does every weekend. I’m sometimes amazed, that it doesn’t take a lot to make a child happy.”