Restaurants Empowering the Deaf & People with Disabilities
India has many restaurants that is empowering the Deaf and people with disabilities. Watch our latest video to learn all about it!
According to market intelligence firm, Unearth Insight, India has almost three crore people with disability, of which around 1.3 crore are employable, but only 34 lakh have been employed.When Powai saw the launch of Mirchi and Mime in 2015, Mumbai got its first restaurant to be run by the Deaf. Tariq Hossain a Deaf man, joined Mirchi and Mime as a steward in 2015. Now in Mumbai at one of luxury mall Palladium’s most popular restaurants, Ishaara, Tarik Hossain is the assistant manager. He is holding up ably as second in command.
Today, not only has he risen to the rank of assistant restaurant manager, but is also involved in recruitment of other Deaf persons and their training. He teaches his team members how to greet guests, serve water & ensure that cutlery is spotless.
Had it not been for pandemic, Tarik would have been restaurant manager by now, Prashant Issar and Anuj Shah, and Riyaaz Amlani are the founders of Ishaara and wanted to employ the Deaf and empower them.
Ishaara is set to launch two more outlets, one in Bengaluru and another in Pune. Hossain is just back from Bengaluru where he was helping the team recruit. He says with pride that he is financially independent, able to pay for his child’s education, and send money back home to his mother in Kolkata. “I also take my wife out to restaurants and on vacations!” Similarly another cafe in Delhi named ‘Echoes Cafe’ is also run by the Deaf! It has a branch in Hyderabad as well and a total of 35 people work in these branches. Like that there are many restaurants like Cafe Arpan and NGOs who train people with disabilities to work.
