Care Package
Proshanti Pack
A yoga-mat-size Shitol Pati with a Nakshi Kantha, for yoga or meditation.
৳1,800
Moner Kaj
Caring Minds. Creating Success. Enabling Independence.
At Moner Kaj, we open doors for people recovering from serious mental illness and neurodivergent individuals to develop practical and creative skills, produce culturally rooted handcrafts, and showcase their products and services through both online and offline marketplaces.
By integrating creative rehabilitation, inclusive livelihoods and research, we want to improve their clinical outcomes, social inclusion, economic growth, independent living and contribution to local cultural heritage protection.
We Connect Dreams to Transform Lives
Millions of people with lived experience of serious mental disorders, and neurodivergent people, around the world have the skills, the clinical improvement and the desire to work. Despite that, most of them remain unemployed.
Moner Kaj aims to transform this situation and give them hope. We want to make real the dreams of millions of unemployed people with lived experience and neurodivergent people: to work and to live a successful, independent life.
1
Identify skills & artistic capacity
2
Provide training & networks
3
Promote products & expand reach
4
Income & economic self-reliance
5
Wellness & treatment adherence
6
Reduce stigma in family & society
Our Model
We Connect Dreams to Transform Lives
60–90M
people live with serious mental disorders
90%
unemployed in low- and middle-income countries
50M
adults live with autism and/or intellectual disability
Though 60 to 90 million people around the world with lived experience of serious mental disorders have the necessary skills and clinical improvement, around 90% of them in low- and middle-income countries remain unemployed. Around 50 million adults globally live with autism and/or an intellectual disability and want to work, but remain unemployed. People living with these two different conditions face exceptionally high, multilayered barriers to employment in low-resource countries like Bangladesh.
As a practising psychiatrist, I have worked directly with neurodivergent individuals and people with serious mental disorders in Bangladesh for 12 years. I have seen how institutional barriers and sociocultural stigma restrict their educational and employment opportunities. Our rigid education systems, stigmatised society and limited training facilities prevent many from gaining formal qualifications or demonstrating their abilities.
Even people who have built the skills and succeeded in their careers, including those with the highest educational qualifications, may struggle to find work once they are diagnosed with a serious mental disorder, even in roles below their level of competence. The causes are deep-seated sociocultural stigma and inflexible workplaces. This leaves millions trapped in permanent, involuntary dependency, creating immense economic and emotional strain for themselves and their families.
Moner Kaj aims to solve this long-standing crisis for millions of people around the world by integrating creative skills development, local production and market access to support social and economic inclusion. We connect six complementary components.
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1
Connected digital platforms and local production hubs
We link specialised digital platforms with a network of local production hubs. These hubs provide spaces for practical learning, product development and service delivery.
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2
A coordinated pathway from skills development to economic participation
We connect training with opportunities to apply skills, produce goods and offer services. Participants sell their products and provide services through both online and offline channels. This approach links skills development directly with access to markets.
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3
Skill development courses and interventions grounded in participants’ cultures and lived experiences
We are developing skill-building courses that connect cultural expression with product development and opportunities for online and offline sales. We will also develop structured interventions using creative arts to support clinical improvement, psychosocial development and quality of life.
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4
Research across clinical, social and economic outcomes at individual, organisation and community level
We explore how participation in creative work relates to clinical outcomes, social participation and economic wellbeing.
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5
Examination of stigma and perceptions of capability
We study community attitudes towards the capabilities and employment of people with serious mental illness and neurodevelopmental conditions.
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6
Preservation of local cultural heritage through the art and craft of Moner Kaj
We seek to preserve local cultural heritage through culturally relevant learning and creative production. This commitment connects economic inclusion with the continuation of local creative traditions.
Moner Ghor: a place to learn and work together
We run climate-adaptive, culturally grounded facilities known as Moner Ghor (Moner Kaj Hubs). Rather than forcing individuals into rigid, neurotypical corporate environments, our approach is “place-and-train”: supported employment integrated with creative therapies and community integration.
Our Team
Moner Kaj is led by Dr Tanjir Rashid Soron, a psychiatrist, implementation researcher, social entrepreneur and designer who brings together medical knowledge, research experience and human-centred system design in an equitable and empathetic way.
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Care Package
Mindfulness Box
A hand-painted mug, premium tea in a handmade box, and a hand-painted diary.
৳1,100
Care Package
Somporko Gift Box
Jewellery, clothing or another gift from our makers, in a hand-painted rickshaw-art box with a hand-stitched note.
৳1,450
Care Package
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Services
Take services from people with lived experience
🥟
Food Making & Catering
Traditional pitha, sweets and Bengali cuisine for events and celebrations.
🧵
Embroidery & Handicraft
Hand-embroidered designs on fabric, garments, cushions, and home décor.
📿
Jewellery Making
Bespoke handcrafted jewellery — necklaces, bangles, earrings to your design.
✂️
Tailoring
Custom-fit clothing and expert garment alterations by skilled tailors.
Learning Hub
Learn a skill. Earn a life.
Short video, audio, and illustrated modules in Bengali and English. Certificates on completion.
45 min
Pricing Your Craft
Work out what your time and materials are actually worth.
40 min
Photographing Your Product
Good listing photos with nothing but a phone and a window.
45 min
Telling Your Story, Growing Your Shop
Write the words that build trust, then turn a first sale into a second.
40 min
Packing, Shipping and Customer Care
Get the piece there safely, and keep the customer after it arrives.
The Changemakers
Transformation stories from learning to earning.
Not only does every person have a life story, but there is also a story behind every product. We want to bring these stories to everyone, to show how many battles they have fought to reach this point and the extraordinary resilience they have shown.
A First Opportunity to Get Paid Work in Life, From the Street to Independence
Story 01
Munni
A First Opportunity, A Future of Her Own
Munni has been suffering from serious mental illness, and her condition was so severe that her parents used tied up in lock and key with a long iron chain to avoid her going outside home and wondering street. She used to take food available on the streets and take the food of goats. She was very verbally abusive while wandering around lanes of the slum. After finding her at this very disappointing condition, our team referred her to hospital and when she improved, we engaged her in Moner Kaj. Now she regularly works at Moner Kaj Dhaka hub and with earning from Moner Kaj, she used to buy medicines and her other day to necessities. She smiles and is enjoying her life.
When Fire Took Everything: Shahinur Sits at Her Machine Again
Story 02
Shahinur
Rebuilding Her Life, One Stitch at a Time
Shahinur was suffering from severe depression and due to her mental disorder, her husband left her and one day her 11-year daughter committed suicide. Her misfortune didn’t ended there, she had a small tailoring shop in the slum, during the last devastating fire at the slum, her shop was burned down. She was referred to biomedical care and improving after treatment. But how could she survive and earn her living! She got a job at Moner Kaj. She is earning and showing resilience.
Beyond the Sleepless Nights: Treatment That Gave Him Back His Days
Story 03
Yunus Sharif
Measured by His Skill, Not His Illness
After a severe mental health crisis, Yunus recovered through treatment but continued to face employment discrimination. People doubted that someone with his history could sew accurately. Moner Kaj assessed him through his skill, not prejudice. Today, he is working again, earning a stable income and supporting his family.
Moner Kaj Hubs
Transformation happening
in different areas.
We are building physical hubs in different places, shaped by each area's local context and resources. We call them Moner Kaj Hubs, or Moner Ghor: places to learn and work together.
We try to make these local hubs as friendly as possible for people with serious mental illness and neurodivergent people.
Korail Slum
Moner Ghor Dhaka (Dhaka Hub)
In the Korail slum, people come from different areas, giving us an opportunity to explore multicultural heritage, climate migrants and life in urban slums. Key activities extend from rickshaw painting to jewelry making, hand stitching to catering, located at the heart of the Korail slum.
- Advanced noise-dampened creative workspace insulation.
- Harnessing deadstock textiles for beautiful patchwork crafts.
- Urban resilience and vocational training for slum communities.
Proposed Hub
Jashore Hub
Jashore is a historic and cultural epicenter for Nakshi Kantha and traditional hand embroidery. The district is also experiencing creeping climate pressures such as erratic rainfall, agricultural disruptions and rising temperatures.
Visit this hub
Climate Frontline
Satkhira Hub
Satkhira offers a unique landscape for climate-adaptation crafts that address acute trauma and ecological displacement, such as using climate-adaptive materials to train people with serious mental disorders and neurodivergent people.
Visit this hub
Jamuna River Char
Patrail Char Hub
Patrail Char is a remote, sandy river island in the Jamuna, in Chauhali, Sirajganj. River erosion and seasonal floods keep reshaping the land, and the community relies on farming, fishing and cattle rearing to get by.
Visit this hubTherapy & Wellbeing
Healing and feeling good
A place not only for earning, but also for healing
Where Bangladesh's Heritage Crafts Turn Into Therapeutic Tools
We work to co-design and co-develop creative arts and crafting as an intervention for clinical, social and economic development.
In parallel, we will create peer support networks for people with serious mental disorders and neurodivergent people.
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Nakshi Kantha Embroidery
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Clay Modeling
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Rickshaw Art
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Shital Pati Weaving
Moner Kaj
The Process
How everyday work becomes therapeutic intervention
We bridge heritage craft and clinical practice through a structured methodology — identifying meaningful activities, structuring them with evidence-based methods, applying them as therapeutic tools, and measuring outcomes.
01
Identify
Select traditional craft activities with high sensory structure — repetition, rhythm, and tactile feedback.
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Structure
Apply clinical methodology to define task sequences, pacing, and sensory anchors that support regulation.
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Apply
Use the structured activity as a therapeutic tool — grounding, co-regulation, and skill-building in session.
04
Measure
Track outcomes — symptom reduction, skill mastery, and sustained engagement — across sessions and cohorts.
How learning, earning and therapy make an impact
Moner Kaj
Research Lab
Learning and exploring the impact through research
We use an open-innovation, user-centred, empathetic and ecologically integrated framework to explore the lives of people with serious mental illness and neurodivergent people: the challenges they face in finding work and during employment, and how creative work can help their clinical, social and economic development.
Our multi-method, longitudinal approach generates real-time qualitative and quantitative data to help us understand the impact of climate change, and how creative arts and cultural heritage protection work together for our wellbeing.
Our Exploration
Climate, Culture & Mental Health
Through innovative work and creative approaches, we explore and intervene in climate-related mental health challenges, integrating local heritage and culture through handcrafts and community storytelling.
Blending Climate & Culture
Art Gallery
Visual Storytelling
We bridge climate awareness with cultural identity through art, creating emotional connections between environmental crisis and heritage.
Art · Narrative · Healing
Kantha Stories
Stitching Innovation
We reimagine traditional Kantha stitching to document climate impact while preserving craft traditions and cultural expression.
Craft · Resilience · Practice
Folk Art
Rickshaw Painting
We channel climate narratives into everyday cultural life through folk art, making environmental messages part of community identity.
Folk · Awareness · Community
Protecting Endangered Heritage
Adaptation
Climate-Conscious Dress
Rising temperatures and floods threaten traditional textile practices. We preserve them through sustainable fashion that honors heritage.
Sustainable · Wellbeing · Wearable
Preservation
Heritage Preservation
Climate disasters, urbanization and industrialization are destroying rich local cultural heritage. We run active programs to rescue and revive them for future generations.
Identity · Resilience · Memory
Sensory Care
Sensory Materials
Climate change is making traditional natural materials scarce. We find sustainable alternatives that keep artisan traditions alive.
Eco-Friendly · Calming · Healing
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Unedited notes from the people who make, buy and gather here.