Recognitions
- Nov’09: ‘Cloth for Work’ wins international
Lien i3 Challenge Award
- June’09: ‘Not just a piece of cloth’ wins
Changemaker’s Innovation Award
- March 2009: CNN IBN’s ‘Real Heros’
award to Mr. Anshu Gupta in women welfare segment.
- March 2008: India NGO of the year' award; in
a nationwide search & selection by Resource Alliance.
- May 2007: GOONJ’s sanitary napkin project ‘Not just
a piece of cloth’ wins World Bank’s Global
Development Market Place Award.
- July 2007: GOONJ’s first initiative “VASTRA-SAMMAN”
recognized as one of ‘The Good Practices’
in Dubai International Awards.
- 2006: Win the prestigious Changemaker’s Innovation
Award, the second time, for our disaster relief initiative
‘RAHAT’.
- 2004: Prestigious Ashoka Fellowship to Anshu
Gupta, for his innovative idea & its mass social impact.
- 2004: GOONJ wins Changemaker’s Innovation
Award for its “SCHOOL to SCHOOL” initiative.
Main initiatives
All GOONJ initiatives revolve around making creative and optimum use of waste material as a resource, right from old cloth to furniture including big generators. Our key initiatives are:
- VASTRA-SAMMAN: : Our nationwide movement highlighting
the importance of cloth as a basic need of poor. Started with
67 personal clothes, now reaching over 40000 kgs of material every
month.
- Cloth for Work: The implementation of VASTRASAMMAN
takes place through Cloth for Work where clothes and other material
are not provided as charity but as a development resource. Initiating
village level development activities, using cloth as a motivation,
generating employment & adding an element of dignity to the
recipients in the process.
- RAHAT: Our initiative for reaching relief in
natural and human made disasters apart from annual disasters like
floods and winters, active since the Chamoli earthquake in 1999.
RAHAT Winters is our regular campaign to build up awareness
on treating winters as an annual disaster. It seeks support of
people to reach material in the villages where countless people
die or suffer due to the scarcity of a basic pair of clothing
or cut jungles to keep themselves warm.
- Turning Tsunami wastage into a resource: A
first of its kind initiative; after tsunami GOONJ worked on over
2 million pieces of waste or undistributed clothes. Around 50
women worked for two years and converted every single unit of
this massive wastage into a valuable cloth or product; right from
school bags to sanitary napkins.
- School to School: Establishing a relationship
between urban and rural schools by channelising school supplies
from one to another. Building a sense of empathy among urban children
towards the needs of their rural counterparts.
- PRATIBIMB: Every year GOONJ organizes a one
to one interaction event between urban and rural children to further
cement the relationship between them as also to move them away
from the bias led donor beneficiary mindset. The event has not
only proved to be a great success, it has opened up many minds
and become GOONJ’s flagship event.
- Not just a piece of cloth; clean cloth sanitary napkins:
Addresses a basic need of village women, by providing clean cloth
sanitary napkins. GOONJ is actively campaigning in rural &
urban India to generate awareness on this taboo issue
- Recycling- a step ahead: Converting
waste paper and cloth into a range of useful products. Two different
ranges are developed keeping in mind the utility in urban and
rural/slum India. If school bags, tents and mats are developed
for rural areas, a range of fancy bags, yoga mats and wallets
are developed to suit the urban demands.
Facts
- Started in 1998 with 67 personal clothes, GOONJ is channelising
more than 40,000 kgs of material every month.
- GOONJ has its own offices in seven cities and voluntary set-ups
in few other cities. Implementation in different parts of 21 states,
working with over 150 partner groups including Indian Army, Ashoka
Fellows, social activists, Panchayats etc.
- A five member governing body, over 300 volunteers-spread all
over, headed by Anshu Gupta, an Ashoka Fellow, as the Founder
Director of GOONJ.
