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Observing 'Cloth Day' on 1st January, to share the basic of life
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GOONJ proposes an innovative way of
bringing in 2009
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New
Delhi, 31st Dec, 2008: GOONJ is campaigning for observing the
first day of the new year as CLOTH DAY for every urbanite, with the symbolic
gesture of giving a piece of clothing to a person less privileged - an act that
will hopefully grow into a habit for the rest of the year.
Anshu
Gupta, Founder Director, GOONJ, says about the ethos behind the day, “We started the concept of
Cloth Day on New Year’s Day two years back and it has been a big success. What
we try to do is tell people that together with parties and other celebrations,
if you give out a piece of cloth, it will go on to clothe a needy in some
corner of the country”.
He adds, “Instead of having gatherings, rallies or
inaugurations like many other DAYS, CLOTH DAY is about inculcating the habit of
thinking of someone who is less fortunate. The idea is certainly to establish
clothing as an issue and involve the masses in addressing this one of the most
ignored basic human right.”
For many years now, on 31st December
midnight, GOONJ team and volunteers bring in the New Year, out on the Delhi
roads, providing warm clothes and blankets to the people on the pavements,
railway stations, hospitals etc.
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Over
the years CLOTH DAY has spread on a wider canvas, with many more individuals,
school children, youngsters & corporates actively organizing awareness cum
collection drives across the country.
Talking about the
escalated need for woolens and clothes this year, Anshu says, “ With the
subsiding of floods, attention has diverted from Bihar. The truth is that those
people left with almost no belongings, are now facing another big challenge -
to live through the bitter winters. Therefore we need more woollens and
clothes, not just for those on the streets of Delhi and other places, but also
for the flood-hit in Bihar and Orissa.”
Winner
of the Indian NGO of the year award, GOONJ is a nationwide movement highlighting the
importance of CLOTH as an ignored basic need of the poor. Working on the motto of turning one’s waste
into others’ basic amenity GOONJ is mobilizing vast quantities of material
including cloth, from urban households across the country and reaching it to
the far flung villages of 21 states as a development resource.
For
more details about how you can become a part of GOONJ log on to
For
more information contact:
Meenakshi
Gupta, Tel: 9818871721
email: meenakshigoonj@gmail.com |
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