“For the longest time, I wanted the same things everyone else wants — to wake up each morning with purpose, to earn my own money, to be trusted with responsibility, and to be known for my work rather than my diagnosis. I was not asking for sympathy. I was asking for a chance to belong,” says Akanksha Mhatre, a master artisan at Karmann.

When school ended, the silence was louder than ever for many young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Structure disappeared. So did opportunity. Jobs were scarce, and independence felt distant.

“I wanted to work, to support my mother, to build a future together. But no jobs were waiting for someone like me,” adds Divyank, another artisan at Karmann.

Across India, thousands of adults with IDD face this abrupt transition at 18 — trained in classrooms but left without pathways into dignified work. Families are left navigating a landscape with few answers, and employment, if available at all, is often rooted in charity rather than capability.

In 2011, three special educators — Beverly Louis, Dilshad Mehershahi and Geetanjali Gaur — decided to challenge that reality.

What began as Mann, a transition space for young adults with disabilities in Mumbai, has since grown into Karmann, a sustainable manufacturing brand that directly employs people with disabilities, upcycles textile waste, and has generated over two crore rupees in revenue while creating dignified livelihoods for 50 artisans.

A question that refused to be ignored

The three women met in their early twenties while training as special educators, at a time when their own futures felt expansive and full of possibility. Teaching young adults the same age made the contrast impossible to ignore.

“We were beginning our adult lives,” Beverly recalls. “We were meant to have careers, independence, the power to choose — but our students were being trained for lives that held far fewer possibilities.”

The question that stayed with them was simple yet uncomfortable: why should disability determine how limited or expansive someone’s life could be?

In 2010, that question became action. With limited financial backing, almost no business training, and deep conviction, they formed Mann, which officially began operations in January 2011 in Mumbai. It was conceived as a transition ecosystem for young adults with disabilities who had completed school and were otherwise left without direction, opportunity or community.

“In the beginning, Mann did not prioritise providing jobs. It was about learning how to live well as an adult — making friends, building routines,........

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