Growing food for families in Piliyandala SriLanka

UPDATE Sep 15th:

Thanks to your generosity, we have reached our initial target of 2,750 CAD! This has enabled us to begin farming the land initially set aside for this project.

Having seen the momentum of our project, the Govijana Seva government agricultural organization has allocated us an acre of land to expand the scope of our cultivation. While we are truly grateful for this land, the expansion of the project has brought with it extra costs, in terms of labour and machinery.

We have therefore increased our crowdfunding target to 4000 CAD (accounting for the depreciating Sri Lankan rupee), confident that with your help we can feed a few Sri Lankan families who have been most affected by the ongoing economic crisis.

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Growing food for people in Piliyandala, Sri Lanka

Dear Fellow Human,

My name is Pabalu, and I live in Piliyandala, Sri Lanka.

I’m creating this campaign to seek help for an urgent matter. I assume that you are aware of what is happening in Sri Lanka at the moment. We are facing what is likely the worst economic crisis in our history. There is a growing scarcity of fuel, electricity, medicine and food. People are dying … dying of hunger… children in villages are malnourished... mothers have started committing suicide along with their infants … and we are far from seeing a light at the end of the tunnel…

I’m trying to do something at least in my area, within my limits and capacity.

We have talked to the authorities and have identified 75 to 100 families near Piliyandala that have nothing to fill their bellies and no jobs available to earn a living. I realized that it is better to farm a plot of land than to buy groceries every month with ever-increasing prices. This way we can continue with food production even beyond the initial investment, and keep distributing food among the most affected.

I managed to find a land of 44 perches, and have already started the ground preparation work from my last bit of savings… Now I'm tired and exhausted…

Just before I started this campaign, we recalculated our costs for finalizing this farming project. Within just a month, inflation has affected our pre-planned budget, and now the cost has risen to around 720,000 LKR (2000 USD or 2750 CAD). I don’t have the capacity to find funding through established channels at the moment since we are running out of time by the day.. it is forecast that after August there will be a massive food shortage here in Sri Lanka and the situation will be unimaginable.

Please help us to get this farming project finalized as soon as possible. Anyway help you can offer will be greatly appreciated... May god be with you and May the positive Karma become a shelter when you too are in need of help.. Gratitude and Much Love.

Pabalu