Jamshedpur Dharwad Orissa Bangalore Nagpur Lucknow (all these should be operate like a link; and when one click on the link should get to that particular report)

Jamshedpur

XLRI anchored GOONJ's Vastra-Samman as a key initiative as a part of Jamshedpur JoyFest. The initiative was launched during the Unveiling Ceremony of the JGW at XLRI, on August 21st, where the community leaders - educationsits, senior corporate executives, civil society leaders - along with Anshu Gupta and Imtiaz Ali appealed to the citizens to participate in the initiative.

Street plays were performed by the students of XLRI in housing complexes to raise awareness about the festival of philanthropy and about “Vastra-Samman”, the clothes collection drive initiative.The Press Club of Jamshedpur too helped by publishing articles about Vastra Samman. The campaign received a heart-warming response from the citizens of Jamshedpur, with the participation of JUSCO, Telcon, Tata Steel, Idea Cellular, Rotary Club, Marwari Mahila Mandal, residential complexes and around 30 schools.

Dharwad

On behalf of volunteers and participants of VASTRA-SAMMAN event DHARWAD-HUBLI, I thank GOONJ, Mr Anshuji, You and all the coordinators for giving us an opportunity and for supporting us to work for the cause and to move in the direction to create an awareness in the society in terms of reusability and natural calamity.

We were able to collect around 500KG of materials within three days of time line in the middle of heavy rain in our area.The campaign highlights

• We addressed more than 10,000 students in 3 days.
• We visited 12 schools/colleges in Dharwad, Hubli and Haliyal.

Everyone appreciated the Idea of GOONJ and gave complete support for the Campaign.
We collected Clothes, Books, School materials etc from all the centers.
Mr.Ghori Khan from Haliyal gave his Car for the transportation.
Soon as Vastra-Samman ended, the complete North Karnataka was affected by the Floods.We are giving a photo having Mahatma Gandhi and followers (Dandi March) as a gift to all the colleges/schools who are participated in the event.We did not collect a
single rupee from the public for conducting the event.

ORISSA

Organized By ADHIKAR (GOONJ’s local partner group) in Bhubaneswar, 2nd -6th October-2009.

With the inspiration of Goonj Adhikar organized the Vastra Samman programme from 2nd -6th October- 09 at Bhubaneswar .There is no doubt it is a very innovative idea & first time implemented in Orissa .We setup 4 collection center in different part of the Bhubaneswar such as Bijupattanaik college, Jayadev Vihar, Sitanath High School Chandrasekharpur, Durgamandap Saheed Nagar & Adhikar area office Nayapalli. In this programme volunteers from EKTA PARISAD, Students from XIMB, KITS, Imfosy, were associated with us. Institutions like Idea, St.Xavier high School, Venkataswar English School were impressed by this programme and contributed. The campaigning of the programme through Posters, leaflet distribution, Print Media &electronic media Like OTV (Local Channel) had a great impact on the crowd. A road show was also conducted by the volunteers at different places to create awareness and enhance the collection of materials. Peoples from various corners contributed different types of material like old and new Clothes, Shoes, Utensil, Toys, Umbrella, Water Bottle, Tiffin Box, Books & bicycle which the volunteers received in the specified collection centers from 8.00 am to 6.00 pm.Everyday a review meeting of volunteers held at night to discuss and share the experience at the collection centre along with the planning for the next day. Adhikar provide contributor card & volunteer card on that programme to the respective person. People were not only happy to donate old cloth, many of the people purchased some new material & gave it with the old cloth. At the end of the campaign, we received many phone calls from different individuals & institutions.

Grand total :Cloth & Non cloth : 164 Bags, 05 Cartoon& one bicycle
• campaign highlight; When the schools were reopened on 5th Oct after puja vacation, teachers told them(the children) about the importance of this campaign. The kids were so impressed that they spontaneously contribute their pen, pencil, cutter, books and note books which were the highlight of this five day long campaign. Some children were so moved, they even contributed their Tiffin box along with the food.

Volunteers speak from Orissa

Aditya Parida (Manager, Accounts, Adhikar Microfinance)
“This kind of programme is first ever in my life. The idea is excellent, the drive is great. In fact the momentum came only on the last day. So the programme should have been continued for 3 more days. By this we can increase the reach and effectiveness of the programme.”
Mana (Volunteer from Ekta Parishad)
“We all have been working in villages. In villages people has this mentality of giving to others. But what I feel, people living in city have never this attitude. These kinds of programmes can develop the above called attitude among the millions of urban citizen in India. The programme should be expanded to a longer span.”
Saroj Panigrahi
“I had a great feelings for this programme and this happened for the first time in Orissa. The poor people have great tendency to donate but he does not have resources, where as a rich person has all resources but he does not have enough will power to donate. The advertisement of the electronic media had a great impact on the crowd. I am extremely sad for not giving enough time to the drive due to my busy work schedule. ”
Basant (Ekta Parishad)
Thanks a lot to sphere head of Vastra Samman, thanks to every one of you who have worked for it. One lady going through my center asked me about the programme and I explained her. After some time the same lady came with her kid and a auto rikswa load of old clothes. This shows the volunteerism people have in them, even now. Every body should understand the idea and change themselves to work for a larger goal of society.”
Ishwar (Ekta Parishad)
“I felt great after working for the drive. I will surely find out some time for these kinds of programme in coming days.”
Smita (Adhikar)
“I never know about this kind of programme while working with microfinance. But this programme was a kind of eye opener for me. I will definitely take part in future.”
Malay (Adhikar)
Thank you all for this great success. I would like to extend my hearty regards to volunteers, donors and media to make it a grand success. I never bothered by the quanty of collection. I was always thought of implanting the concept among the crowd, and I am sure this drive has reached at the people. For that I am really happy. We have included different group of people from every corner of the society. That should be the objective of any drive intends to bring some change in society. I would also like to extend my hearty regards to Goonj who has inspired us for the VASTRA SAMMAN Programme.

BANGALORE

Dear All,
Thanks for the overwhelming support you have given us for 'Vastra-Samman' and 'Rahat- Flood' campaign. When we launched the campaign, we had not expected that we will be able to collect over 10000 kg of clothes/food. But we all 'together' have done it.A total of 94 companies participated in the campaign excluding the 350 plus individuals who came to contribute at our residences/centres. Lot of them are yet to come.First truck load of material was dispatched to Raichur last week which includes the following items:

1500 kg of Food Items, 200 ltr Edible Oil, 2000 candles, 10000 match boxes and 1750 kg of Clothes. As per stocks in Bangalore we'll be dispatching 5 more truck loads of similar kinds in the coming weeks.The effected regions of Andhra Pradesh & Karnataka are also getting large quantites of material from other centres of GOONJ including Delhi & Mumbai.These are the 14 villages from Raichur District that we are trying to reach out at this point of time:Huluguchi, Mavinamadgu, Ayanur, Valaballary, Chintamanadoddi, Uppala, Hedginal, Dhadesugur, Budihal, Haretnur, Chitrali, Gonniganur, Kengal & Chincharadi.

We would like to thank Mr Swami and his wife Nomito for lending us the godown at Kengeri when we were not able to get any other place in city, Aarti Mohan from Sattva, Jennifer Abraham from Richmond Road and Vishal Talreja from 'Dream-a-Dream' who gave us space in their offices/homes during Vastra-Samman campaign.

Groups who created awareness about campaigns are 'Citizen Matters' and 'Deccan Chronicle', who reached out at the length and breadth of the city. Also we had logistic support from AFL transports and Philips for considerable duration. BTW...we are still looking out for such dedicated teams who could support us for Flood relief logistics :-)

With just three of us, it was a herculine task to sort the material. But there were a few volunteers who came forward and joined hands with us, without whom we could not have achieved this. We are extremely greatful to them because they came all the way to Kengeri and helped us sort and pack inspite of the fact that there is absolutely no basic facility like electricity / bathrooms in and around that area:-). We would like to list the names of these volunteers:

Anandteertha, Anupama. K, Jaychandra Sharma, Harish N.S, Seema Dharma, Manjunath Ramreddy, Saurabh Puri, Kavita Sherawat, Jason Davis, Govindaraj Pai, Venkateshvaran S.S and Abhijit Kumar

All the families/individuals who sorted material at their end or purchased gunny bags for us, we appreciate all your efforts. We would urge everyone to follow your steps same way :-)

One good news for all you 'Our friends' is that Mr. Anshu Gupta, founder of GOONJ, has finally agreed to start a complete processing centre at Bangalore, and we are looking out for a permanent space of around 1500 sqft in the city. Anyone who knows of or has any place to lend, do keep us posted. We have yet 4 more truck load of material to be sorted out, so anyone and everyone who is ready to spare time and energy with us...please reach us at the earliest.

Finally before ending, thank you once again for all your efforts and please let us know incase you have not received receipts for funds/materials that you had contributed.Please visit our website at www.goonj.info for latest updates at GOONJ.
Regards
Smitha, Srividya and Sushil
GOONJ Bangalore team

NAGPUR

The team Prayyas organized a very successful material collection drive at VNIT.There was an unexpected response from the faculties,students as well as Joggers at the campus. We collected heaps of clothes equivalent to 2 single rooms of Vnit. There were also generous contributions from people. We were able to raise around 10,660 Rs.in two days with just mouth to mouth publicity. Our young team members used to catch the Joggers literally and tell them the whole presentation. 1A special word of mention for Khodaskar sir & Asawa ji. They really supported us by motivating the team at times, frequent visits as well as bringing food items and ice creams for the volunteers sitting at the desk. It really seemed like we were working in a family. Thank you sir for teaching us values of team spirit.

Lucknow

Ms. Usha Kala, a senior GOONJ volunteer (an expert counselor, trainer, a highly motivated and positive communicator and most of all a gem of a human being) traveled to Lucknow to manage GOONJ’s Vastra Samman campaign at the prestigious La Matinier’s Girls’ School.. She was accompanied by Mukesh, a GOONJ team member. Usha Ji’s first person report from the field:
Most of the collection was from school children. It was heartening that they came in full strength with material in plastic/paper bags, emptied and stood in row quietly for me to talk about the products.
The children of La Martinier’s were already involved in a sharing program through the ‘Gandhi Corner’ at the school, where they collect utensils, clothes, food and share it with an identified cluster. Also the college has adopted an old age home “Prem Niwas” where they send breakfast.
During the campaign Usha ji interacted with more than 800 students. Here are some excerpts from her interaction.
“The one question which was constantly coming from them was what they can do; my simple answer was that they are already doing with the help of school; they should study & play hard and grow into responsible citizens. When you are engineers, doctors, architects, administrators, politicians, scientists etc never forget that your country is beyond cities. Remember GOONJ stories ---- always connect to them while building a dam or a bridge, malls, hospitals etc and build schools, hospitals, roads and houses in far flung areas of India….”