Australia’s Sri Lankan community is responding to calls for help as the island nation plunges further into unrest.
With severe shortages and regular blackouts, Sri Lanka is asking its citizens overseas to send money home.
At a restaurant in Sydney, every meal purchased from the set menu is matched with a donation to those going hungry in Sri Lanka.
Colombo Social is a social enterprise kitchen that already feeds and provides employment to disadvantaged community members.
Co-founder Shaun Christie-David says with his birth country crying out for help, he had to do something.
“We'd love to be over there and doing what we do here, which is just getting into a kitchen, getting our team ready and just pumping out food. But we think that our efforts can be better utilised here,” Mr Christie-David said.
This week the country announced it would suspend foreign debt repayments.
The central bank governor then issued a plea for citizens overseas to send money home.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is offering to talk with the thousands of protesters camped outside his office. They’re pushing for him to resign, with a foreign currency shortage stalling shipments of food, fuel and medicines.
Mr Rajapaksa said on Thursday: “In the face of the current economic and global crisis, Sri Lanka has to face the biggest challenge in our history.
“We must overcome it with unity and understanding.”
Almost 9,000 kilometres away, Rajan Wijey from the Sri Lankan-Australian community in Sydney, said they feel helpless watching on from afar.
“That's a sadness of, you know, watching someone who can't, you know, have one meal a day and, you know, whereas we are living in a country, very comfortable,” Mr Wijey said.
A group of community members has held a meeting with their local federal MP Julian Leeser, who said Australia is pledging $2.5 million more in aid.
“The Australian government calls on all parties to find a constructive and democratic way out of the current situation because we're concerned about the people of Sri Lanka,” Mr Leeser said.
They’re also asking for Australia to send medical supplies.
President of the New South Wales Sri Lankan Association Roshan Wickremanayake said the health care system in the capital is crumbling.
“Even the cancer hospital doesn't have enough medication to give the people and also the other hospitals are short of medicine, and foodstuffs as well,” Mr Wickremanayake said.
Dr Suharsha Kanathigoda, who leads a charity that provides health care in Sri Lanka, says the shortage of medical equipment means disposable supplies are having to be washed and used again.
“It’s heartbreaking to see the whole medical system over there breaking down because of the lack of resources in terms of this equipment,” Mr Kanathigoda said.
