A spirit of caring

• The Voice Community Kitchen continues its efforts to reach out to the needy

By Anoushka Jayasuriya

The Voice Community Kitchen will serve a Christmas meal for 500 people on December 23 and will continue their operations after a short break on January 3, 2023.

“For me, what I have learned from the last six months is that regardless of all the negative things that are happening, when people find a worthy cause, they will come together to help,” says Moses Akash, national director of the Voice for Voiceless Foundation. The Foundation which is a government registered charity organization working towards the elimination of violence against children, youth and women, initiated the Voice Community Kitchen in June this year in response to the effects of the economic crisis.

Earlier, the Foundation also worked to deliver dry rations and other necessities to the needy during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and continued these efforts with the start of the economic crisis. Moses shared that the Foundation chose to open its first community kitchen and begin serving meals when they realized that most of the families they were helping did not have the means to cook or prepare the dry rations received due to the shortage of gas. Their first community kitchen location was opened in Rajagiriya and received more than 150 visitors seeking cooked meals on their first day in operation.

Within a week, more than 400 people began to visit the kitchen. The kitchen is open every week day and meals are served between 12.30 p.m. and 2 p.m.

Having completed more than 200 days in operation, the Foundation now operates 17 community kitchens across Sri Lanka in areas including Kadawatha, Batticaloa, Negombo, Maskeliya and even as far as Delft Island. Moses estimates that collectively, the kitchens have served over 210, 000 meals to date with around  2200 meals on average for a single day.

The cost of sponsoring a single meal is Rs. 200. Each meal consists of a plate of rice accompanied by vegetables, curries, a meat or protein  –  soya meat, fish, chicken or egg and is prepared and served by a team of volunteers. Moses revealed that the kitchen is operated entirely with the support of volunteers and donations received from locals and expats. Several corporate organizations have also extended their help by sponsoring meals and donating food items and dry rations.

At the outset, due to the scarcity of gas and kerosene oil, the kitchens had to rely on the use of firewood to cook each meal. Currently, the kitchens still primarily use firewood but now use gas as well. “The kitchen is open to anyone no matter who they are,” says Moses, adding that they have had visitors coming from Kaduwela, Borella and Battaramulla to their Rajagiriya kitchen on foot in search of a cooked meal.

“It’s almost 400 rupees for you to have a meal in this area. If you’re a person who gets paid 1000 rupees a day, spending 400 for meals and another 200 for transport, you’re forced to survive on just 400 rupees even after you’ve worked a whole day.”

Moses recalled another occasion where a woman had asked to make use of some burnt rice the volunteer team had attempted to clean up. “She said to us, ‘I haven’t seen a single grain of rice in three days - this is like gold to me’, and asked to take it. We told her that she couldn’t eat it but she insisted and took the rice home in a shopping bag for dinner. We’ve also had someone tell us that they hadn’t seen a piece of meat in four months,” says Moses.

The Foundation has also begun partnering with schools around Sri Lanka to serve meals to schoolchildren in rural areas such as Jaffna, Kilinochchi, Ampara, Matara and Maskeliya.  Moses shared that they also have plans to help provide schools with the necessary materials needed to begin growing and cultivating their own produce next year.

For more information on how you can donate or volunteer, visit www.vforv.org and follow the Voice for Voiceless Foundation on Facebook.