The Orange café by acid attack survivors to open soon in Varanasi

Varanasi is set to get a new café that will be run entirely by acid attack survivors. The cafe named The Orange will be opened in the Durga Kund area, and is a project of the Red Brigade Trust, which is a non-profit organisation that trains women in self-defence.

Ajay Kumar Patel, who founded the Red Brigade, stated that they are starting the café from a rented place, the ownership of which they might get soon. He also added that the sole aim of starting the café is to enable acid attackers in owning and running the café.
He further added that the women are now undergoing training to cook food, serve customers, and take care of the billing part. They are being trained in a manner that enables them to be not dependent on others for those tasks. During the initial months, the women will be paid a token amount; later, they will share the profit among themselves, he added.
The Orange cafe is the third such restaurant that will be opened in Varanasi, after Lucknow and Agra, where the chefs, waiters, and the billing personnel will be acid attack survivors.

To be opened in a 600 sq ft space, the yet-to-be finalised menu will feature local delicacies, where the emphasis will be on nutrition as well.
Reports also suggest that the café’s name, The Orange, is also a reference to UNESCO’s ‘Orange the World’ campaign that marks 16 days of activism against gender-based violence, which kicks off on November 25 every year, and runs till December 10.

The décor inside the café has shades of orange and red to mark the struggles of women and has been conceptualised by the Visual Arts Department of the Banaras Hindu University.