SRI LANKA’ S LATEST COMMUNITY KITCHEN CONCEPT 

By Amana Ifthikar Fawaz

One’s kitchen could be best known as the Hearth of a home. A lot of our hearths have been disoriented due to various factors of the crisis striking our homes. This is the sole purpose of why Chef Duminda and his team initiated “ගමේ මුළුතැන්ගෙයි” letting Sri Lankan have a taste of what it feels like to have a Community kitchen amongst us. 

The Community kitchen concept is something the locals haven’t  heard of much and therefore needed a lot of exposure to it. At a dire time as such initiating something like this brought about a lot of negative comments without a doubt. Yet the sheer determination and perseverance of the team is what has got ගමේ මුළුතැන්ගෙයි to where it stands today. We spoke to Chef Duminda,  rather the backbone of this project about how it all began. Here’s how the chat went down: 

Firstly Chef Duminda,  Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into food making ? 

I am professionally a chef .I have worked in Italy and Australia on this concept of community kitchen.

Who and what made you initiate the idea of organizing the Community Kitchen “ගමේ මුළුතැන්ගෙයි”?

 Today the present situation in the country has led me to start this project.  We have created this for the low income earners in the country and I have seen in other countries they have created such projects for their low income earners so I thought it will be beneficial for  our people if we create this project.

How has the response to your idea been, what has been the best feeling about initiating this project?

The main perspective of this is to give a meal to all the low income earning families. And this is a new project we all should lend our hands to make this project successful. I’m glad to do projects of this kind at a time like this.

What has been the most stressful thing about it? 

 This is actually a hard process to create inside a village . It is hard for us to gather all people for this event in a village because of the political aspects they are having. They still fight for their political parties and try to pull down the people who encourage or try to help them .

How can the general public extend support to this project? 

For now we don’t have a huge support from the General Public because this concept is still something new to the people and they don’t have a proper idea about this concept.

Whom does one who wishes to volunteer contact? 

Yes ,all the volunteers can join this through Sri community development foundation

Does the community kitchen only cater to a particular group of people? 

Yes , we Carter to the low income families in villages and for the people who starve with no meals during this time of crisis. We get help from GA and AGA who are in those areas.

What kind of Donations are welcome for the project? 

we don’t expect money and do not want volunteers who give money we highly appreciate if they can give or lend us some dry rations and ones who are interested in this can contact the main office in Mathugama by contacting them to the number given.

Sri Community Development Foundation 

+94 77 735 2504

Here’s all of us at Chokolaate wishing the Team at Sri Community Development Foundation with all the success they deserve for initiating such an amazing project by feeding the hungry.