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IDP voices – Ponnaih Nisanthan at the Tharmapuram market

photo of Nisanthan selling Narval palam

The children as sellers. There are many very young girls and boys spending their day at the market trying to sell trivial amounts of fruit or vegetable to make a pittance which will be used to feed their IDP families. Twelve years old Ponnaih Nisanthan is just one of them. He had a small bucket of the purple berry fruit, Narval, that is in season. He was shouting to sell a small tin full of this fruit for LKR 10.00. He said,

“Our village is Mannankulam in Kilinochchi. We displaced from there many times and have finally ended up here. My family is suffering severe poverty. I did not attend school since February this year. Before that I was studying Grade 8 at Kollar-Puliyankulam GTM School. We are eleven children in our family. My father works for daily wages. He does not get much work now. I have five younger siblings and none of them go to school.

I pick these fruits from a tree near where we are living and bring it here to sell. I buy rice for the money I get and take it home. Every day I bring ten tins of fruit. Sometimes I sell them all and sometimes I won’t. Only if I take rice home, my mother will cook that day. Many children are selling this fruit like me because they too face poverty like us.”

09 November 2008

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