Services with a difference

At a time when people with disabilities are fighting for their rights, these Mumbai-based social entrepreneurs are offering the differently abled employment

In an open and airy kitchen in Juhu, 12 people get busy making lunch dabbas each morning at ten. What’s special about this place is that eight of them are adults with developmental disabilities. Although Arpan, an initiative of the Yash Charitable Trust, began in April 2015, it is only recently that this dabba service with a difference went viral on Facebook and WhatsApp. However, Arpan is not the only such initiative in the city, which provides jobs for individuals with disabilities instead of keeping them fully dependent on donations. Quite a few of Mumbai’s enterprising minds have come up with ideas that have gone a long way in providing ‘dignified employment’ for people with disabilities.

“Our goal is to provide a supported, community-based employment,” says Sushma Nagakar, trustee of Yash Charitable Trust. The workers at Arpan chop vegetables, cook, pack up meals and deliver them via car or autorickshaw to nearby areas. “We also take turns in putting vegetable peals for compost,” says Nazneen, who has a mild intellectual disability. “I am happy to be working here,” says Nazneen’s friend, Pratibha, a chirpy woman of 28 years with autism, “I have also made friends with people like Nazneen and Chetan (the youngest member of the team at 18, who has Down’s Syndrome).”

“One of our customers posted about what we were doing on WhatsApp and it went viral,” explains Sushma. “We were inundated with orders and though, unfortunately, we were not able to meet all of them, the inquiries and the subsequent media spotlight definitely helped in enhancing awareness.”

A few miles away from Arpan’s Juhu kitchen, located in the posh Pali Hill neighbourhood in Bandra, Metta Foot Spa is one such place, which employs individuals who all have visual disabilities. “I started Metta because I was angry that blind people do not get employment easily,” says Joanita Figueiredo, the founder and owner of the spa, “11 of our 13 massage therapists are completely blind while the other two have partial blindness, and all have been certified as massage therapists after a course in reflexology massage at NAB (National Association for the Blind).” The idea behind employing people with visual disabilities, according to Joanita, was to enable a social entrepreneurship model. Although there were a couple of stumbling blocks when the spa opened in 2009, it is a thriving establishment now and has quite a number of regulars coming in.

27-year-old Sanjay Sudda, who has been a therapist at the spa for the past three years, says that the spa is “like a family” and has been a great experience for him so far. For 30-year-old Devidas, the spa changed his entire outlook. “Before coming to work here, I did not think that I would fit in anywhere else, but now I have the confidence that I can do whatever I set my mind to—whether the place specially hires blind people or not.” According to Devidas, the therapists undergo an initial training session before beginning their paid work wherein they are taught to interact with customers and the importance of hygiene. Sanjay is also happy to report that many customers specifically ask for him or one of the other therapists when they are happy with a massage.

While Metta spa helps blind people gain employment, Mirakle Couriers deals with an equally complex disability, deafness. Since it is an invisible disability, deafness often goes overlooked but, according to Dhruv Lakra, CEO of Mirakle, is just as serious as more obviously visible disabilities. The concept of opening a courier service run completely by people with hearing impairment came about because this particular service requires reading a lot of visual cues but not a lot of verbal communication. “Convincing clients was quite a challenge initially,” says Dhruv, “but we started with small shipments and have come a long way.” After the initial teething troubles, however, the courier service has built up a reputation as a reliable service and currently employs 20 women in the back office and 44 deaf male agents to deliver the couriers across Mumbai.

Numerous other such places exist in the city. There’s Mirchi and Mime, a restaurant in Powai which employs deaf employees or the spa at Abode hotel, Colaba apart from Sparsh Foot Spa in Kandivali, both of which also employ a number of blind therapists. While such institutions have gone a long way towards changing the charity-based model for helping people with disabilities to a rights-based one, entrepreneurs like Dhruv, Joanita and Sushma all agree that there is definitely a long way to go before their employment needs are fully met.