Let’s think of the child who hasn’t had a meal - EDITORIAL

Sri Lanka is a country that needs a lot of food now to feed many hungry mouths. Something that alarms us is that many of these mouths are that of children. Many programmes have been commenced by private organizations to address this issue, but the government’s programme titled ‘Leave no one behind’ seems to be quite popular with the people. 
The Government has set up information centres in 341 divisional secretariats to gather information about those in need of food. Apart from that people can register themselves for the government programme. 

Sri Lanka is at the moment experiencing a huge economic crisis and many families have had to cut down on at least one meal they have during the day. In worse case scenarios there are families that cannot provide even a single meal for their loved ones. It is these cases which have to be addressed immediately. 
The Government’s ‘Leave no one behind’ programme was initiated by President Ranil Wickremesinghe. It is administrated by a Welfare Benefit Board. As many as 2.3 million applications have been received by the board so far from people who cannot find a way to at least ensure a hand to mouth existence. 

This programme is being conducted at a time when there is much talk that there is malnutrition in the country. This claim is however rejected by the government. 
At times how the regime responds to criticism is strange. Now we are reading much news about the government’s attempts to downgrade the country from being a middle-income country to a low-income country. This is to gain concessions from the International Development Association (IDA), which is an arm of the World Bank. This association stretches its hand out in support of nations which are battling poverty and are vulnerable. 

The most important thing at this juncture is not to allow our children to fall into the category of those who are vulnerable due to lack of nutrition. We have heard these days enough stories about children coming to school and fainting at assembly or very early during the first period at school. Despite the doom and gloom we also hear of efforts taken in most schools to offer food to the less privileged. We saw the other day- on national television- how teachers and the principal in a school set-up a food box, so that children from affluent homes could bring an extra packet of rice for someone less fortunate. 

These are days when we see people going that extra mile to look around to see whether there is a hungry mouth that needs some food. Some philanthropists have gone a bit further and volunteered to buy medicines for the poor. These are days when the government must be wise and allow into the country whatever food and medicine that donors wish to send. This writer is saying so because there were times during the tsunami when Sri Lanka lost golden opportunities to receive aid because of unwanted red tape in state administration.  

This is a time when our kids are looking up at us adults to fight this battle against poverty, the financial crisis and great uncertainty.  Being a majority Buddhist nation we must recall a common saying by the saffron robed monks that a sermon should never be delivered to a person whose stomach is demanding a meal. The same theory applies to our children as well. You cannot expect any child to concentrate on studies if he or she hasn’t had a proper meal before coming to school. Let us not send our children hungry to school under any circumstance.