Spoke about the founding story. She was a Graduate from Azim Premji Institute,Calcutta. She moved to Hubli and started Mier of tti Cafe with funds from family and friends. Mitti Cafe was first started as a stall outside a corporate office. With one employee, Kirti.
She is the CEO of Mitti cafe and has a COO, Named Swati.
The organization has mitti cafe, Karuna Meals, Karuna Kitchen and Mitti Mom’s. Mitti Cafe is placed within the corporate office, which currently has 13 locations. The cafes employ primarily people with special needs, including physical, visual, hearing and intellectual disabilities. The main chefs could be people who might not have any disabilities, but the staff were mostly, people with disabilities and they were trained to prepare and serve food. The quality of such training was given keeping in mind all the regulations that are provided by the food safety department. Kirti, one of their first employee, after 3 dropped cups of chai in her first attempt now became the manager for most of their cafes.
They focus mainly on training adults with special needs so that they can be hired with different NGOs working towards inclusion like Samarthanam in Bangalore etc.
Karuna meals is another service that provides food for free especially for covid affected laborers, they also integrate homeless people and integrate them into communities by providing them jobs.
Karuna kitchen is a centralised kitchen that works in participation with swiggy and zomato to deliver food prepared by people with special needs.
Mitti Moms is another initiative where mothers of people with special needs individuals prepare home made meals to buyers.
What I have learned from her journey is that sometimes some partnerships fails when both are not aligned to goals. Never stop asking for investors, and to improve the art of storytelling.
Payment is given based on competency
Revenue comes in through grants and incubation centers and CSR activity.