The delicious aroma of baking hits you when you enter Ausome Bites’ production unit. In this house, tucked away in a corner of Unnichira near Edappally, six people with autism, with help from their mothers, bake cookies, brownies, muffins, cupcakes and an occasional batch of vegetable puffs. What started out as ‘assignments’ over an Autism Club WhatsApp group during the pandemic to keep children busy is now a two-year old fledgling business that empowers them and gives them a sense of purpose.
“Apart from helping Vaishnav get trained in a vocation and inculcating self reliance, this will help him with being independent; the salary is also a big boost for the kids,” says Vaishnav’s mother, Vidya Kuttikat, a special educator. She, along with the mothers of Aakash Sanjay, Sohan Bijo, Brian Varghese Pradeep, Sam Varghese and Antony Eby, spends production days with the boys at the unit. Their ages range from 18 to 30 years.
Work has been hectic at the unit this month, with orders coming in from companies across Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram. While exhibitions, flea markets and pop-ups form a chunk of their sales, they also retail out of a couple of supermarkets and cater [on a small scale] for private events. One such event led to an order for a batch of brownies and cookies travelling overseas. There is also a website through which online orders can be placed.
“Word-of-mouth publicity has been getting us the orders!” says Deepthi Mathew, Sam Varghese’s mother.
Ausome Bites is an Autism Club Ernakulam initiative to provide vocational training for people with autism. Employment options are few and limited for people with autism after they graduate from high school, this way the club hopes to equip the young people with a certain degree of independence. They are paid salaries, ranging from ₹5,000 to ₹10,000.
The club helped with the setting up of the unit and pays a percentage of the rent for space as well. The parents also chipped in with the initial investments, and well-wishers pitched in with donations and equipment to set up the unit. People with autism are also trained in baking here.
Lessons in empowerment
Anita Pradeep, one of the members of the club and a home baker, provided the training. “These kids are routine lovers; regular orders means work, which means structure for the kids. They feel relaxed and the activity lowers their anxiety levels,” Deepthi says. The precision of the processes — measuring, mixing, and shaping — helps them stay focussed. The chores are allotted based on the proficiency of each person. The packaging too is handled in-house. “As they have heightened sensory perception, we cannot make everyone do everything,” she says.
Besides the obvious benefits there are others such as fostering friendship among the six young men when they work together. The mothers benefit as much from being part of Ausome Bites. They bond over their shared experience and have formed a support system for each other. Although they started out with a menu of three types of cookies, today they have grown to 18 varieties, besides other items and diversifying into healthy alternatives such as wheat, oats, millet cookies, jaggery and brown sugar.
The unit usually functions on three days a week, from 9.30am to 3pm depending on the number of orders. The mothers supervise and help with the processes and handling of equipment. “Anita is the only baker among us, the rest of us learned along the way with the kids,” says Vidya. Over the past two years of its existence, since July 2022, Ausome Bites’ clientele includes Wipro (Kochi), Aster Medcity, Centreal Bazaar, Street Store, and Chillax.
Online orders can be placed at ausomebites.com
