BHUBANESWAR: Koraput Coffee. The name resonates with the idea of a perfect cup of aromatic and flavourful coffee grown in verdant valleys of the southern Odisha district. But there’s more to the homegrown brand.It is now ensuring that a small group of young adults with autism and Down Syndrome in Bhubaneswar is economically empowered. The Tribal Development Co-operative Corporation of Odisha Ltd. (TDCCOL) under the ST & SC Development, Minorities & Backward Classes Welfare Department has roped in a city-based organisation Vriddhi to make soaps using Koraput Coffee through 20 youths.
Launched recently at Adisha, a TDCCOL outlet and e-commerce platform, these coffee bean shaped soaps are being prepared by the youths from the residue of the coffee that is brewed in Koraput Coffee outlets in Bhubaneswar. All of them are in their 30s.
“Coffee has been used as a good body scrub since ages. Instead of throwing the coffee residue into dustbins, we decided to recycle it to be used as body scrub soaps. We send it to Vriddhi’s production centre where the soaps are made by the youths,” said Managing Director of TDCCOL Mansi Nimbhal. The soaps are being marketed under the brand Koraput Coffee. And all the proceeds from sale of these soaps, except the tax, go into the accounts of the 20 youths. “This way, not only is the coffee recycled but it is also contributing to a noble cause,” added Nimbhal.
Chumki Dutta, who founded Vriddhi in 2017 as a training-cum-production centre for manufacturing of FMCG products by differently-abled persons, said the detoxifying coffee bathing soap bars are organic and chemical free. The centre operates from the premises of National Career Service Centre for the Differently-abled under Ministry of Labour and Employment in Bhubaneswar. The Ministry provided the equipment required for the unit.
In fact, the coffee soap is among the 14 varieties of soaps that youths of Vriddhi make besides nine types of agarbattis, scented candles and Odisha handloom notebooks. “Since these youths have communication challenges and are only receptive to instructions, they are assisted by their mothers in the process.
A majority of the sales proceeds from this unit goes to them and some to their mothers for helping them,” said Dutta who was awarded the ‘Best Employee/Self Employed with Disabilities in Locomotor Disability’ by the then President of India Ram Nath Kovind in 2017. The award has been instituted by the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment.