At the beginning of this project it was urgent that families be fed. So we did our best to feed and lift up as many as we could. But if we were to continue doing that, then we would face two huge problems;
On the one hand Tara Lanka would not be able to continue indefinitely — we would soon run out of the funds that make it possible to feed families time after time. And as soon as we stopped, families would again face starvation. That’s no solution, just delaying the end.
On the other hand, such continuous giving creates dependence. For those who are receiving, it robs them of any incentive to make their own decisions and to generate a life that not only feeds their families but gives them a sense of worth and achievement.
Early Steps
Our next focus was to ignite the fire of innovation in the families we are serving. It’s clearly a mix of education and skills training. We looked at many options that could fit current capacities, and we decided to run a trial with 3 cows that can provide milk and we chose 3 families that we thought could and would manage them appropriately.
Agriculture Expert
We introduced some helpful outside knowledge so let’s see how it takes.
Water
Lack of water is a big problem but we have not been able to fix it because of other things we lack.. There is an old, disused well that we spent some time on. We wanted to bring it back to life but repairs were extremely expensive and, even if we could solve that problem, the villagers could not afford to pay for the power that would be required to run it.
Please, if you have access to solutions, let us know.