Over 26 years
We have rehabilitated 123 specially-abled youth & young adults through education and our social & vocational skill development initiatives.
Our 8 Welfare Institutes provide sustainable livelihood generation possibilities ranging from wood free hand-made paper making, to natural dyed textiles, a natural fruit preserve factory, embroidery, candle & soap making, baking to natural vegetable & fruit gardens.
Ratna Krishnakumar
“It all began with a walk in the plantation one afternoon. A plantation home on the estate, a specially-abled child and the need to provide day-care and a regular education.”
Mrs. Ratna Krishnakumar has been actively involved in the development & activities of Srishti Charitable Trust for the 26 years from its inception.
Our Founder & Managing Trustee
we grew from strength to strength…
DARE School
A School for the specially-abled children of plantation workers in Munnar. Due to the nature of their work, parents had no other choice but to leave them locked at home for the whole day without care. These differently-abled children and young adults, unlike their normal counterparts who got both education and care at schools, were devoid of both education and basic day-care.
Trained instructors at DARE provide full-fledged training in functional academics and training in self-help skills to these specially-abled children.
Disha
The Seamstresses have been drawing their thread creating Laundry Bags for the Taj Group of Hotels apart from masks & plain cotton cloth bags.
A dedicated team delicately embroiders & smocks pattens onto frocks for infants & little girls.
Athulya Paper Studio
A Wood free hand-made Paper Studio with a pledge & a purpose to recycle paper, cardboard and other used paper stationery generated from the plantation offices of Tata Tea a Vocational Centre was inaugurated. A few years in, specially-abled adults were imparted training to make hand-made paper & products at the centre.
#WealthFromWaste
The centre today caters to the stationery needs of the plantation Offices, books & folders for schools, up-cycled brown paper bags to specialist retail chains like Croma, along with a large variety of custom-made wood free hand-made paper products like diaries, bookmarks, trays, table mats & lamps.
Vatika
The Healing Gardens & nature is a powerful source of therapeutic energy & healing. Our physically fit youth above 18 years with severe mental challenges are engaged in planting & nurturing naturally grown vegetables, fruits and flowers at the gardens of Srishti.
Nisarga
A Fruit Preserve Factory was our first foray into sustainable livelihood generation in the Food industry. The educators at DARE School, in its initial years, engaged the minds & challenged the skills of the first batch of graduates in a small kitchen making strawberry preserve.
Strawberries were collected from the bungalows of sometimes the teachers and plantations managers along with fresh produce from local farmers.
Deli
A Bakery is where our hearing and speech impaired adults have found their niche in our Bakery. Our bakers and Chefs have been empowered with professional training with acclaimed Chefs of 5 star hotels and now bake an assortment of baked and confectionery food products and have acquired local acclaim with the locals in Munnar and with the tourists who visit the town.
Aranya Natural
A Natural DyeHouse that dyes textiles produced by weavers across India in Natural dyes collected from plants & sourced from native sources.
The specially-abled artists at the DyeHouse have been trained by the world renowned Shibori Scholar, Curator & Artist - Yoshiko Wada in the resist-dye technique of Shibori. Axel Becker - Our Mentor for Everything Indigo.
Our artist enrich the fabric with block prints, tie & dye, eco-printing & Shibori Techniques.
Kurinji
A Café is our most recent endeavours was a Café for tourists and locals in the town of Munnar. The Café has a vast offering of lunch and dinner cuisine while it retails products from our Bakery as well.