Just as day breaks, I load my bags into my rented tuk-tuk and hit the road before the midday heat and traffic set in. Soon enough, my stomach begins to rumble in sync with the sputtering three-wheeler. At a time of day when most shops haven’t yet raised their shutters, and the only companions on the road are stray cows and the occasional cyclist balancing sacks of produce, I strike gold: an open-air cafeteria where clay pots and banana leaves brim with foods I’ve never tasted—or even seen—before, all at prices that feel almost too good to be true.
I’ve arrived at Hela Bojun Hala—literally translating to “traditional food house” in Sinhala. Stepping inside, I’m struck by a scene still rare across much of South Asia: a public space run entirely by women. Women in green aprons and hair nets move briskly between counters, cooking, cleaning, serving customers, and ringing up sales.
Behind a counter lined with wood apples, mangoes, and limes waiting to be pressed into fresh juices, I meet Harshani. A homemaker for most of her life, she tells me through Google Translate how Hela Bojun Hala gave her a new sense of purpose after her children grew older. “I became nervous sitting at home all day, not knowing what to do with my time,” she said. “I’ve cooked for my family my whole life. Now I can share my food with people from all over Sri Lanka—and even foreigners from around the world.”
Across Sri Lanka, these open-air eateries—known as Hela Bojun Hala in the south and west, and Ammachchi Traditional Food Centres in the north and east—have become unlikely engines of social change. Run entirely by women often from low-income and rural backgrounds, they serve affordable, regional, nutrient-rich meals.
By 7 am, the women at the roadside canteen in Kandy are already deep into the morning rush. One rolls out kurakkan roti—earthy finger millet flatbreads—with practised hands dusted in flour. Another stirs a steaming clay pot of kola kenda, a vivid green herbal porridge made from gotukola leaves and rice. Nearby, coconut sambol is pounded rhythmically with chilli and lime while a line of customers begins to form beneath a painted sign bearing the Hela Bojun logo: two bangled hands cradling a bowl framed by rice panicles.
The Hela Bojun concept emerged in 2007 under the Women’s Agricultural Extension Programme of Sri Lanka’s Department of Agriculture. At the time, Sri Lanka was grappling with rising food imports, changing eating habits, and widespread unemployment among rural women.
“The original goal was twofold,” says Buddhika Randunuge, Assistant Director of Agriculture (Women’s Extension) in Sri Lanka. “We wanted to economically empower women while also encouraging the production and consumption of local crops.” But unlike many government programmes that disappear into paperwork and bureaucracy, Hela Bojun was intentionally designed to be public-facing and community-oriented.
The Department of Agriculture identified women through agricultural extension societies already operating at grassroots level. Most came from farming households with little or unstable income. What followed was a rigorous two-year training programme where women attended classes covering entrepreneurship, bookkeeping, savings, investment, communication skills, customer relations, consumer trend analysis, and food hygiene.
Participants also received stipends during training, allowing women who otherwise could not afford unpaid labour to participate.
“The idea was not just to teach women how to cook,” says Randunuge, “but also to become independent entrepreneurs who could sustain themselves even after leaving the programme.” The concept later expanded into the north and east under a Tamil name: Ammachchi Unavagam. “The programme itself is the same,” Randunuge says. “But because of the cultural and linguistic differences, the identity and food traditions are slightly different.”
At the Ammachchi food centre in Jaffna, the menu shifts subtly to reflect the food traditions of northern Tamil Sri Lanka. At one counter, I meet Nanthini, who patiently explains pittu, the fluffy steamed cylinders of rice flour and coconut. Nearby, trays overflow with ulundu vadai (black gram fritters), paruppu adai (savoury lentil and rice pancakes), and vazhaipoo vadai (banana flower fritters).
After losing her husband during Sri Lanka’s civil war, Nanthini survived for years on irregular labour and support from relatives before joining the Ammachchi canteen. “This kitchen gave me a stable income, confidence, and dignity after many difficult years,” she tells me through an English-speaking colleague.
Today, there are 26 Hela Bojun Hala outlets officially audited by the Department of Agriculture across Sri Lanka, although many more operate independently under similar names. Since its inception, the programme has directly helped place around 400 women into the food enterprise sector, impacting hundreds more family members indirectly.
On my way to the Golden Temple of Dambulla—famed for its intricate Buddhist cave paintings dating back more than two millennia—I stop for lunch at the Hela Bojun Hala in Matale. In the punishing afternoon heat, the canteen feels like an oasis: its clay-tiled roof and lime-plastered walls offer cool relief, while a clay pot of naturally chilled drinking water sits near the entrance for weary travellers like myself.
String hoppers rest in neat white spirals, drenched in silky kiri hodi (coconut milk curry) and served alongside coconut sambol. Fresh kiribath—creamy milk rice—is cut into diamonds and paired with fiery lunu miris. Nearby are parcels of helapa, a sweet made from rice flour, coconut, and jaggery wrapped in fragrant kenda (parasol) leaves, alongside mung guli (sweet mung bean balls) and tender jackfruit cutlets crackling fresh from hot oil.
Most dishes cost between Rs. 30 and Rs. 100. and a full meal is often cheaper than a bottle of water at Colombo airport. For many Sri Lankans struggling with inflation and rising food prices, these canteens have become daily lifelines.
Yet while the canteens primarily serve local communities, for many visitors these kitchens become accidental introductions to Sri Lankan cuisine beyond the standard hotel buffet. Travellers pulling over for breakfast often discover a side of the country’s food culture rarely seen in restaurants. Beyond the ubiquitous pol roti and rice-and-curry plates found across the island, these canteens specialise in dishes deeply tied to local agriculture and regional identity—the kind of recipes that seldom make it beyond home kitchens.
“Most tourists come to Sri Lanka expecting only rice and curry,” says Buddhika Randunuge, Assistant Director of Agriculture (Women’s Extension) in Sri Lanka. “But our cuisine is much more diverse than that. These canteens helps introduce people to the foods that rural communities have been cooking for generations.”
In many ways, Hela Bojun and Ammachchi challenge several realities of modern Sri Lanka simultaneously. They encourage healthier while creating markets for local farmers growing traditional crops; they provide women with economic independence; and lastly, they preserve regional cuisines that risk disappearing under the homogenising influence of global tourism.
But perhaps the movement’s most radical achievement lies in the visibility of Sri Lanka’s culinary knowledge that otherwise only existed within private kitchens, carried by women whose labour went unpaid and unrecognised for generations.
