Mirakle Couriers was founded in January 2009. Started by Dhruv Lakra who combined his education and experience in both the business and social sectors to come up with a for-profit social enterprise. The idea to help the deaf was triggered by one particular incident he experienced while traveling on a bus in Mumbai.
Once upon a time, Dhruv was sitting on a bus next to a young boy looking eagerly out the window. In fact he was not just eager but actually being very restless. He was looking around anxiously, seeming slightly lost. Dhruv asked him where he was going but the boy did not respond. It took him a few seconds to realise that this boy was unable to hear or speak. He was deaf. Though the bus conductor regularly announced the stops this boy still did not know where he was. Dhruv took out a piece of paper and wrote to him in Hindi asking him where he was going. Through the back and forth pen and paper exchange, it suddenly dawned on Dhruv how difficult life was for the deaf. Something as straightforward as a bus became a struggle.
It is an invisible disability. You can not know when someone near you is deaf as there are no obvious physical attributes, and so its totally ignored. It is also a silent (voiceless) disability. There is very little public sympathy for the deaf, and by connection, a severe lack of government support for them in India. Particularly when it comes to employment there are no opportunities because no one has the patience or the foresight to learn deaf language and culture. This is how Mirakle Couriers was born.
Over the next few months Dhruv spent time exploring the deaf culture and learning Indian Sign Language. He focused on a courier business because it requires a lot of visual skills but no verbal communication. The deaf are extremely good at maps reading, remembering roads and buildings because they are so visually inclined.
Over the last two years Mirakle Couriers has grown to operate in 2 Branches in the city, employing 70 deaf employees and delivering over 65,000 shipments per month. We have won several awards including the 2009 Hellen Keller award and the 2010 National Award for the Empowerment of People With Disablities.
To find out more about us please read the other sections
For Business:
+91 99200 79384
service@miraklecouriers.com
For Deaf Jobs:
jobs@miraklecouriers.com
08/02/12
Around 6% of Indians suffer from some form of hearing loss. 6% of 1.17 billion is over 10 million people. 66% of those are unemployed. That's over 6 million.
6,000,000.
Think about the immensity of that number. Mirakle Couriers sees that number as a challenge—a challenge to which we are determined to rise. Since the day we began, when it was just...