Thread by @nimilamalee

I've been following @Mike_Affinity's tweets and other information about meals for school children and I have something to say, as a journalist who has covered this story. #SriLanka

https://twitter.com/Mike_Affinity/status/1654185487140265985

The problem of hunger and undernutrition in #SriLanka is dire and as bad as it ever was. Life out there doesn't comprise rosy economic statics and data, stock market ups and downs or "it's-better-than-before" middle-class narratives. Kids still don't have food. That's reality.

We're all complaining about there not being eggs. Kids of low-income families haven't had protein for months. Couldn't afford it. There are a LOT of poor people in Sri Lanka now. Even under our noses, in Colombo, the urban poor. They're not all tucked away in villages.

As part of the coverage I did with foreign media, we went to schools where teachers and principals maintain BMI charts. We were shocked at just how many children didn't meet their milestones, and by a long shot. Many were visibly skinny and hadn't eaten meat or fish in months.

In some schools, we asked kids who had or hadn't had breakfast. Inevitably, the ones that hadn't eaten were deathly quiet or reluctantly raised their hands. In one school, one girl fainted in assembly before our very eyes. This was just weeks ago.

Visually, the impact is heartbreaking. Kids are skinny, tiny, much smaller than "our children" whose lives are markedly better this year than last. Their arms and legs are like twigs and their eyes are like saucers. And I'm speaking here of primary children who were our focus.

We went to preschools that @UNICEF was supporting in estates. No words to describe the situation of children there. But this epidemic of undernutrition and hunger isn't in one part of Sri Lanka. It's everywhere. It hasn't ended, not by a long shot.

Incomes haven't risen. Thousands of daily-paid workers have no wages. They stopped sending kids to school because they couldn't feed them in the mornings. The govt's per-child allowance was not enough when compared with inflation so schools started looking for other options.

The principal of one school I visited supported by the 'Rise Up Sri Lanka School Meal Programme', when he found kids were hungry and dropping out, looked for his own sponsors and funded the first round of meals before receiving additional backing.

Very often, I hear this comment: "Things look so normal in Sri Lanka". They're not. The problem is a silent killer. And it's as real and as bad as it ever was. This generation of children, our future, is going undernourished and they will have to pay the price.