Urja Mart in Kandivli aims to help childrenwith special needs gather skills that will help them get employed
Nandini Ladhani and Filoni Joshi (in blue) are seen assisting a customer at Urja Mart. Pic/Anurag Ahire
For 17-year-old Dhwani Shah, it’s a completely new experience of learning how to generate a bill for the goods purchased by a customer. For Abhiraj Singh, 17, it’s knowing which is the dedicated rack for noodles and guiding customers towards it. All this is happening at newly launched Urja Mart, which is not an ordinary supermarket.
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Launched on March 20 in Mahavir Nagar, Kandivli (West) by Dr Mihir Parekh, a psychologist and special educator, and his wife Pooja Parekh, who have been working with children with special needs since 2008, the supermarket aims to provide children with special abilities with skill sets that will help them become employable. Within a week of its opening, the mart has caught the attention of the local residents who stepped in to purchase goods.
“We have been working to educate and train specially-abled children so that they may get employment. There are still misconceptions about them in our society. These children may take time to learn things but once they do, they do it with perfection just like anyone else, “ says Dr Parekh, who also runs a rehabilitation and therapy centre with her husband. “Therefore, we thought of launching a supermarket, which will give these children hands-on training,” she adds.
Besides groceries and other consumer goods, the mart also showcases handmade crafts, made by these children, like personalised mugs, t-shirts and keychains. Neeta Ladhani, mother of 18-year-old Nandini, had come to the mart on Saturday. “I came to check how my daughter is doing. I am surprised as well as happy to see that she knows which stock is getting exhausted, which products need to re-ordered, how to make bills and also what money needs to be computed. This is a great initiative for special kids,” she said.
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