How Alina Alam’s Mitti Cafe Is Empowering Hundreds Of Specially-abled People Across India

Alina Alam, 28, created Mitti Cafe in Hubli and Bengaluru in 2017, with the goal of empowering and providing opportunities to persons with disabilities. Since then, Mitti Cafe’s roots have extended far and wide across numerous regions of the country.

Mitti is a chain of cafes that is entirely managed by specially-abled people who originate from low-income households and struggle with physical, intellectual, and psychological problems.

Story Behind Mitti Cafe

Alina saw the untapped potential of those with disabilities while working as an intern at Bengaluru’s Samarthanam Trust for the Disabled.

“I started Mitti cafe while I was in college waiting for placements. I was very inspired by this one documentary by P Sainath Nero’s Guests which motivated me to take action about any cause that you really feel for,” Alina told The Cognate.

A young woman with a passion for social justice, Alina set out to build a model that is visible to those who are unable to view tangible interacting objects.

“Through the medium of food, I wanted to do two things: One is generating livelihood for people with disabilities because all our cafes are run by people with physical, intellectual and psychiatric disabilities. More importantly, with every beverage that we serve, we create awareness about inclusion,” she said.

Alina wanted to do something in the field of livelihood inclusion that can lead to economic independence and dignity for people with disabilities.

“I felt they are a cohort with very high potential and a lot was needed to be done in this aspect. I have had relatives and friends with this. And all that I could see in them were abilities whether they run a wheelchair, or were on crutches, whether they have some intellectual or psychiatric disabilities, but there was so much more to them as a person in terms of their talents in terms of their personal relationships. In terms of the way I looked at the world and the way the world views disabilities was a big disconnect that I wanted to personally really, contribute to change.”

Mitti Cafe Team Has Served Over 8 Million Meals And Beverages

The Mitti Cafe Team have served over 8 million meals and beverages till now. Alina said that through this they have been “able to really help”, and “create awareness about disability inclusion”.

With healthy vegetarian food from across the world and mom’s magic recipes, dining at Mitti Cafe is a unique experience. The cafe’s warmly lit ambience and the staff greeting with cheerful smiles will instantly put you at ease.

Team Has Served Over 3 Million Meals For Economically Vulnerable People

In addition to providing meals at their cafés, these extraordinary individuals have also donated food to orphanages, senior citizens’ homes, and struggling towns. Over 3 million meals have been provided by the staff to various customers.

“It gives us immense pride to say that we have vertical compassion meals or Karuna meals where apart from the food that’s served at our cafes, we serve food to people who cannot afford it buy it. Food is cooked and served by our people with disabilities to the economically vulnerable,” she said, adding thereby enabling to really show that, “given the right kind of opportunity and face people with disabilities can not just support themselves and their family, but can support the nation in need.”

Proving their abilities as warriors with disabilities, the teams even cooked and served over 1 million meals to daily wage labourers and the homeless.

Starting Up Mitti Cafe

Alina began her business by establishing food stands in collaboration with organisations, corporations, colleges, hospitals, and business parks. “We had no money in the bank, no sales, and numerous rejections.”

“The Deshpande Foundation, which supports aspiring business owners, told me they couldn’t help me with money, but instead gave me a shed to start my first cafe,” said Alina.

“Since we started building cafes with no funds and after numerous failed sales attempts, I would like to offer the community of strangers full credit for our entire journey. The majority of the equipment—used refrigerator and oven—and furniture were gifts from strangers.”

“I always believe that it is 1% idea 99% of implementation. The idea can be as simple as we are doing. While starting up, the most important thing is to start.”

Training Specially-abled Employees

The largest issue Alina faced, however, was getting people with disabilities to look in the mirror and encourage them to trust in their potential since “years of bullying and rejection has caused many to reduce their value to their infirmities,” according to Alina.

“Our first employee was this girl, who actually came in crawling for the interview because her family could not afford a wheelchair. She could not even hold a cup of coffee or a pen, her hands would shake and it would fall. But today she bought her own wheelchair with her salary and manages ten other people with disabilities. She is the manager of our first cafe. Her name is Keerti.”

Another gem of Mitti Cafe is Sahiba, who suffered from multiple sclerosis, which means he has no control over her hands or her legs. But she rose above her challenges and uses her fantastic people skills to wow customers.

“Sabiha’s talent is that if you come in for a 10 rupees tea, she will talk you out of a 50 rupees combo meal. All that we do is show them that they are so much beyond that and then magic happens!” she added.

“We have hundreds of like them. We have been able to train over 3000 people with disability. All of them have got their own dreams and vision for society. Every person with a disability who works at Mitti Cafe knows that they are not just working, they know that they are absolutely important stakeholders and change makers who are creating awareness about inclusion from the front. Generally, people with disabilities are kept in the back. But we are taking them to the front whether it is our single-handed warrior Murthy, who works with one hand,” Alina said.

Alina Alam’s Vision Through Her Cafe To Aid Specially Challenged People

“In my opinion, the issue is not that there are seven crore persons with disabilities. Over one billion people live on the planet. Through our cafe, we hope to demonstrate that people’s perceptions and not their disabilities are the real issue.”

Mitti means mud. Hence, the name Mitti Cafe comes from the simple idea that we all come from mud and to mud, we will return, which means that our existence and our end are the same despite us coming from different religions, races, and caste, creeds and gender. Mitti Cafe is all about unity in diversity, says Alina.

Alina says that if we can remove the disability in our perception; remove the blinkers, then we can open a billion opportunities for people with disabilities across the world.

She gives the example of her staff, Subhairappa, who, she says got rejected in over 80 job interviews. “Today he is our team lead and he also found love in this cafe. He found his wife who’s also got dwarfism and motor disability. We have many love stories at Mitti cafe. Love is beyond anything in the world like any disability or any barriers.”

The Mitti cafe currently has roughly 23 locations spread throughout several Indian cities, including Hubli, Bangalore, Calcutta, and Hyderabad. There are close to 18 cafes only in Bangalore.