Muhammad Subhan has found a new hope to earn his livelihoodin a dignified way. In his mid 30s, Subhan till yesterday was doing any kind ofmenial job he could found. But now part of Athrout’s initiative ‘My Bike Cafe’,Subhan says he has been earning not only better but in an honourable way.
Subhan, who has to leave his studies midway due to weakfinancial position in his family, is very optimistic about this new opportunityhe has been provided by Athrout, in the form of ‘My Bike Cafe’.
The initiative launched few days back is aimed to providelivelihood to marginalised youth by these cafes on wheels to sell the streetfood
“I was pursuing computer sciences but had to leave it due tofinancial condition at home. Then I started to do all kinds of menial jobs tosupport my family but I was unable to make the ends meet,” said Subhan. He ismarried and one of his three kids is disabled.
“In these few days, since I started to run the My Bike Cafe,I’m able to earn better, and am hopeful the condition back home will improve. Iam not able to provide education to my kids but such initiatives of providinglivelihood like Athrout is providing will change things. The encouraging thingis that they pick people who are really in dire need and are the lone breadwinnersof their families,” he added.
Like Subhan there are more youth who are getting associatedwith these Cafes on Wheels which has been recently launched by Athrout in a bidto provide livelihood to youth from weaker sections of society and to take theKashmiri Street food to a new level.
These ‘Cafes On Wheels’ is a home grown initiative launchedfew days back to uplift youth of Kashmir economically and promote local streetfood.
“Our primary target is to locate youth in their 20s and 30swho don’t have any livelihood and come from weaker sections of the society. Weprovide them with these bike cafes and eatables to sell so that they cansupport their families,” said Bashir Ahmed Nadwi, president of Athrout.
“One of the youth who was provide with the bike cafe is ayoung boy who has a paralysed father back home, these are the kind of people welook for so that those who deserve most will get a chance to earn through ourinitiative,” he said. “There were many persons who applied for it but wehandpicked only those who don’t have anything to support their family.”
The aim of the programme is to empower these youth to earntheir own livelihood and make them self-reliant, he said. Besides providingbike food cart, Athrout is providing all the raw material and food items theyrequire.
The group ofvolunteers at Athrout, who have been behind the idea, said that they have beenworking for over a year on initiative of the cafes on wheels.
The volunteers saidthat they have kept the working of these small bike cafes like those operatedin foreign countries. “Hygiene and quality are our top priorities. We haveprovided uniforms and paper disposables so that everything will be kept clean.Besides this, use of gloves is mandatory because we want to give hygiene top priority,”said one of the volunteers.
“Recently we damaged a large amount of eatables when wefound that it is not up to the standard. By keeping these small things in mindwe are trying to make a difference from conventional vendors,” he said.
The organization hasstarted with half a dozen such bike cafes. These cafes have a Kashmir centricmenu like Kehwa, Kashmiri bakery items, vegetarian and non-veg patties and areplanning to introduce Namkeen chai, Pulao etc in coming days.
The organisation gotpermission to install their bikes inside Government Medical College last week.The members of Athrout said that they are locating places where there will be alarge base of customers for their cafes.
The next level of planning, the chairman of the organizationsaid, is to involve women in this initiative who will prepare the food items attheir homes, which will be supplied to these cafes.
“For now we have collaborated with vendors who provide uswith supplies but in coming days we want to involve female folk so that theinitiative can help many more needy families,” he said.
“These females will be preparing the food items in their ownhomes to supply to these My Bike Cafes, in this way a female can earn from homeas well,” he added.
The organisation is working in other fields too in order touplift the weaker sections of Kashmiri society.
“Athrout has alwaystried their best to help the poor sections of society. Apart from this newinitiative, we are providing medical help, marriage assistance, education forthose who can’t afford these things,” Bashir Ahmed Nadwi said adding that thereare many people who don’t have an earning hand back home and the organizationtry their best to help these people by providing them with monthly assistance.
The members from the organization said that they hadreceived a good response from people to the My Bike Cafe initiative and theyare hopeful that more people will benefit from it.
Since the cause has a humanistic background, they hope moreand more people will buy from My Bike Cafe to help and encourage thesemarginalised youth.