The Ammachi Canteens of Sri Lanka: A Unique Model of Socio-economic Empowerment

Ammachi Unavagam (which roughly translates to ‘grandmother’s eatery’ in Tamil), a government-run chain of low-cost eateries in northern Sri Lanka, gives women a platform for financial and social independence. Writer Vidya Balachander finds they are an interesting study in the power of food as a catalyst of social change, disrupting deep-rooted patriarchal structures and fostering economic independence among women entrepreneurs.

Sudarshini’s story is camouflaged by her attire. Wearing a green apron over a matching t-shirt and skirt, the 40-year-old banters easily with her colleagues, her face often breaking into a toothy grin. The greys in her hair are pulled back under a green cap. The uniform lends Sudarshini an air of authority, which she leans on in her role as the de facto leader of a collective of women entrepreneurs who cook and sell food for a living in Jaffna, the capital of Sri Lanka’s Northern Province.

Watching Sudarshini making thosais—thicker and spongier than Indian dosas—and interacting with customers who stream in through the day, it is hard to believe that this is her first ‘formal’ job. Prior to joining Ammachi Unavagam (which roughly translates to ‘grandmother’s eatery’ in Tamil), a government-run chain of low-cost eateries in northern Sri Lanka, the mother of four ran a string of home-based businesses to supplement the family income. Like many other women in this part of the country, which still bears a disproportionate burden of the socio-economic impact of the country’s nearly three-decade-long civil war, Sudarshini has had an intimate experience of upheaval and strife. “It is the same to me whether my husband is there or not,” she said, implying that his contribution to the household was minimal. Driven to occupy the role of breadwinner, she has found a source of livelihood—and a shared solidarity—in and through the Ammachi canteen.

First piloted in Jaffna in 2017, Ammachi canteens are an extension of an existing model that had already been successfully tried in the rest of Sri Lanka. In 2006, the central government’s Department of Agriculture set up the first hela bojun hala or ‘traditional food court’ in Sinhalese, run exclusively by women entrepreneurs, in the hill town of Kandy. The two-pronged objective of this initiative was to provide a means of livelihood for the vendors, while also reviving interest in traditional Sri Lankan produce. The hela bojun hala canteens sell items such as kenda or porridge made with nutritious ingredients such as gotukola (Asian pennywort) and kithul pitti (or flour derived from the pith of the foxtail palm); polos cutlets made of baby jackfruit; appa or hoppers and rice and curry, all sold at extremely reasonable rates.

Inspired by the widespread popularity of these food courts, which serve as bustling pit stops in some of Sri Lanka’s most frequented tourist towns, the concept was introduced to the north. Here, it was aimed at providing a means of livelihood for war widows and other women whose lives had been disrupted by conflict. While the basic structure remained the same, the name was changed to reflect the Tamil-majority ethnic makeup of the north and the dishes included a more regional selection of snacks such as thosai, ulundu wadai (or medu vadas), kundu thosai (or paniyarams), soosiyam (deep-fried orbs made of sweetened green moong), and a variety of local drinks such as naval coffee (made from powdered jamun or naval seeds, as they are known locally) and juices.

For a multitude of reasons, including the fact that the snacks and drinks are priced at a pocket-friendly Rs 20-100 (approximately INR 10-50), the Ammachi canteens have been a runaway hit. In the last two years, under the direction of the provincial government—and with the assistance of NGOs such as the United Nations Development Programme—the canteens have proliferated to five cities in the north. These include towns such as Kilinochchi, Mullaitivu and Vavuniya, which are still on the slow road to recovery, a decade since the war ended.

Even though freshly prepared food at inexpensive prices may seem like a simple formula for success, the true triumphs of the Ammachi model are much more nuanced. At the most basic level, it offers the opportunity for economic—and social—advancement to vulnerable women, in a part of the country that still contends with serious gender inequities. According to the Labour Force Survey conducted in 2017, while the national labour force participation for women was 36.6% in the rest of Sri Lanka, it was a much lower 22.8 to 27% in the districts of the Northern Province. Even though this disparity has not been studied extensively, it is generally attributed to a number of socio-economic factors, including repeated displacement during the war, the devastation of the local economy in the aftermath of the conflict and a corresponding lack of opportunities.

At the same time, the end of the war also unveiled a harsh new reality — a stark rise in the number of female-headed households in the North. In 2015, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) estimated that there were 58,121 female-headed households in the Northern Province. Although there are varying definitions of female-headed households, the Department of Census and Statistics in Sri Lanka defines it as a household where ‘a female adult member is the one who is responsible for the care and the organisation of the household…’ In addition to war widows, this definition also applies to families where husbands are disabled or unemployed.

Several of the women I interviewed in the Jaffna and Kilinochchi branches of the Ammachi canteens mentioned that they were motivated to apply because of extenuating family circumstances. Padmini, a 38-year-old mother of three who was employed at the Jaffna branch, told me how her family found itself deeply in debt. In 2006, at the height of the conflict, she pawned her gold jewellery and borrowed Rs 1.4 million (approximately 7,50,000 INR) from a moneylender to help her husband illegally emigrate. The middleman involved disappeared with her husband’s passport and money, leaving him stranded in Chennai. After returning to Jaffna by boat, Padmini says her husband stopped working. Forced to repay the family’s ever-spiralling loans while also providing for her three daughters, Padmini found herself in the position of having to lead her household.

Kanita quit her bank job to join an Ammachi because it allowed her to care for her seriously ailing mother.

While presenting the opportunity for economic emancipation, this abrupt change in traditional gender norms has come at a commensurate price for women, many of whom must balance care-giving responsibilities with earning a livelihood. Structured as cooperatives, the Ammachi canteens offer women the social capital of strength in numbers and benefiting from common experience in addition to the impetus to float their own businesses. The provincial department of agriculture is responsible for providing the basic infrastructure, including constructing the physical space, procuring cooking facilities, kitchen utensils and furniture, and also providing training in cooking and business skills. Once the women have been trained in cooking a menu of items that runs fairly standard across branches, they become responsible for the running of their own stalls. Each woman works out of a designated cooking station, decides her menu for the day and directly interacts with her customers.

Each employee must pay for her own ingredients, and set aside a small sum every month for overheads such as utility bills and the salaries of the cleaning staff. Given that most food items are heavily subsidised, this may seem like an unviable financial model. But the low price and the strategic location of the canteens—along arterial roads and near intercity railway and bus terminals—attracts a large volume of customers. On an average, after accounting for miscellaneous expenses, each vendor earns between Rs 500 to Rs 800 per day (approximately 200-300 INR). (However, this varies widely based on the products themselves — for instance, a vendor selling more ‘premium’ items such as mushroom cutlets is likely to earn more than one selling lower priced juices or hot drinks.)

It goes without saying that the Ammachi canteens are not a magic bullet for the pervasive socio-economic problems of Northern Sri Lanka. The limitations of the model include the fact that only a small number of women can be employed at each branch. (Although the specifics of the recruitment process are unclear, officials at the Secretariat for Coordinating Reconciliation Mechanisms, a government body that is involved in implementing post-war reconciliation measures such as social welfare projects, mentioned that it is coordinated by the provincial government). Besides, as food entrepreneurs by circumstance rather than choice, the women often find themselves in the position of having to cook unfamiliar foods, in the process of working out what is ‘popular’. Occasionally, this translates to what Thamathorampillai Sanaathanan, an art historian and professor at the University of Jaffna calls ‘a conflict of imagination’. “Whose culture is this really?” he said. “There needs to be more thought behind it. These women are not cooking the food [they eat].”

While stressing the need for quality control and a cogent strategy in popularising the Ammachi canteens and ensuring their continued success, Sanaathanan is also quick to acknowledge that the initiative has offered women vendors and consumers a degree of flexibility that they did not enjoy earlier. Straitjacketed by stringent caste and gender rules that determined social interactions, women rarely enjoyed the freedom to freely interact with people of all backgrounds — that too on their own terms. “You can see that the vendors are very comfortable with the space,” said Sanaathanan. “It has given them a completely different identity.”

As I discovered during the course of nearly six months of academic research, for some of the most vulnerable women employed in the Ammachi canteens, this new identity can serve as a lifeline. Although they are understandably reluctant to dwell on their past, some of the women employed in the Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu branches have had an intimate brush with the war — either as close relatives of former LTTE cadres or as former cadres themselves. I met S., a former cadre with a frail, bird-like build and a wan smile, who told me unflinchingly that she lost several members of her family in the final stages of the war. In the course of the fighting, she also sustained grievous injuries and still harbours bullets in her back. Looking to make a fresh start and pay off her family’s loans, while also studying to be a nurse, she found a job in an Ammachi canteen. Even though former women soldiers like S. often face ostracism even within their own communities, as the Swedish journalist Kim Wall wrote in her final story, at least during the course of her day job cooking and feeding customers, S.’s backstory becomes less relevant. “The stories of these women are hidden behind their uniforms,” said Sanaathanan. “Customers don’t care about that.”

Sudarshini is the de facto leader of the 35-odd women employed at the Jaffna Ammachi canteen. After acquiring yearlong training in cooking, the mother-of-four joined the Ammachi last year.

The power of food to help remember, mourn and heal from conflict has been explored before, particularly in the context of Sri Lanka. In 2016, Palmera, a not-for-profit organisation based in Australia, published Handmade, a cookbook of recipes drawn from war-affected women in the country’s north and east. The Ammachi canteens represent a more organic—and hands-on—approach to using food as a catalyst of social change. Five more Ammachi canteens are scheduled to become operational within the next two years.

However, their future is likely to be influenced by the socio-political climate of Sri Lanka. On November 16, 2019, the country held a crucial Presidential election, which is likely to shape the policies of the country in significant ways. On November 18, the country’s former defence secretary, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, was sworn in as President. A hardline politician who is often credited with ending the war, Gotabaya Rajapaksa is also accused of serious war crimes and being involved with the disappearances of former rebel leaders as well as aid workers and journalists who were seen as being political opponents.

With many political analysts fearing that a return of Rajapaksa rule could deepen sectarian divisions between the Buddhist Sinhalese majority and minorities such as the Tamils, the future of progressive initiatives that benefit minorities, such as the Ammachi canteens, hangs in the balance.

Vidya Balachander is a freelance writer, editor and consultant currently based out of Dubai. Formerly the features editor of BBC Good Food's India edition, her writing has appeared in publications such as NPR's The Salt, Roads & Kingdoms, National Geographic Traveller, Mint Lounge and others.

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