FOOD: Plan helps families grow vegetables by providing agricultural training and resources such as seeds, tools and fertilizer. Solar dryers are also provided for preserving excess crops for times of need. Children often help cultivate the family vegetable garden.

Here is an example of a Plan-funded food program in Sri Lanka.

As Sri Lanka continues to be are severely affected by drought, Plan has developed a number of food projects that ensures children especially, do not go hungry.

In October 2004, an estimated three million people in 14 of Sri Lanka's 25 regions were threatened by starvation; mostly poor rural farmers and their families who have been unable to cultivate their land or have suffered successive crop failures due to lack of rain.

One of the worst drought-affected areas is in the Moneragala district where Plan works. A children.s nutrition project has been implemented to help mothers to provide a nutritionally balanced lunch for each child attending the Galbokka pre-school. Mothers can also attend a nutritional training program ensuring the nutrition project is sustainable on a long-term basis.

Plan has funded the purchase of pots and pans and basic food stocks such as rice and sweet potatoes. Parents also bring some of their own pots and pans from home, supply firewood and some fruit, green herbs and vegetables when available. The mothers also take it in turns to cook healthy meals such as porridge; rice and curry; cereal and milk; and tea.

Plan works in Sri Lanka to help improve the lives of over 20,000 sponsored children and their families, as well as the lives of tens of thousands of other children and families.

Television personality and landscape designer Jamie Durie, who visited his two sponsored children in Sri Lanka in 2002 said after the visit that he felt his own life had been changed by knowing how much his sponsorship dollars - just $35 a month - had changed the lives of Damith and Sagarika and their families and communities. Jamie said he encouraged more Australians to become Plan child sponsors hopefully encouraging many others to get that feeling for themselves.

Plan Sri Lanka, through its children's nutrition programs, so far has helped support 1,340 children between the ages of three and five attending 44 preschools. One of Plan's biggest concerns is improving the health of children and in times of drought when food at home is scarce, Plan's children's nutrition projects are vital.

Food programs such as Plan's children's nutrition program in Sri Lanka, are funded by donations and child sponsorships.