Shrushti
Charitable Trust: to the aid of differently-abled in munnar
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Abandoned
by her husband,
23-year-old Mallika reached the gate of Srushti Charitable Trust in
Munnar with
her infant daughter. 30 years down the
road, she has a home to stay, a job with salary, has visited foreign
countries
and has her daughter doing higher studies in Ireand.
She is now
an employee
of the cloth dying unit that Shrushti runs for differently-abled. Shrushti is the brainchild of Rethna, wife of
late Krishnakumar, a former director of Tata Sons.
The Trust runs 6 units which include paper-making factory,
natural cloth
dying unit, fruit-vegetable-flower unit, jam and preservative unit and
bakery. Even dung of the wild elephants is
not wasted
but used for making paper in their factory.
The other
unit is a school
for differently-abled. This fully
residential and free school imparts training in arts and life skills. At the age of 18, the students
are shifted to one of the units of Shrushti where they start to work
and earn a
living.
At present
there are 117
differently-abled in various units of the Trust. Many
choose their life-partners in their workplace
itself and settle down here.
Akhil
Sahayi (text), Kerala Kaumudi, January 31,
2023
