Team Silent Coffee Introduces You to the First Ever Inclusive Café in Maldives, The Coffee Shrub!
‘Miyaheli’ is a social innovation camp held on an annual basis which is hosted by UNDP in the Maldives in partnership with several others and is funded by the Australian Government. It is a platform offering youths the opportunity to test innovative ideas and solutions to development problems. Team Silent Coffee was first heard of at this camp, in 2019.
In 2019, the camp was conducted with focus on eliminating the barriers faced by persons with disabilities. As a participant of the camp, Team Silent Coffee pitched in the brilliant idea of establishing a café with deaf baristas as employees, where customers learn sign language to place their order, for which they successfully secured 2nd place. However, the team was only able to pilot this concept, by the courtesy of a team of three young entrepreneurs running a small coffee shop in Male’ City; The Coffee Shrub.
By a joint effort, ‘silent coffee’ initiative will be hosted at The Coffee Shrub during set hours for a period of 4 months. As part of the project, the café’s menu has been developed in sign language. In addition to this, 3 hearing impaired persons have been trained as baristas and given the opportunity to work at the café’ for the aforesaid period. In addition to this, their existing servers have also been trained in sign language.
The Coffee Shrub has decided to share 30% of sales made on 26th and 27th November 2020 with Team Silent Coffee in celebrating the success of their partnership.
Resident Representative for UNDP in the Maldives, Ms. Akiko Fuji inaugurated the ‘silent coffee’ initiative during a launching event held this Thursday.
