The echo of deprivation: How re-used clothes provide livelihood to many

Nearly two decades after it came into being, Goonj - a non-profit - has ensured that while repurposed cloth reaches people, it also provides livelihood to pockets of India largely ignored

One would assume that the life of a piece of clothing usually ends with a tiny rip, a worn-out tear or even mere boredom at its place in the wardrobe. In India, though, a robust culture of charity and giving allows pieces of clothing to last beyond their first owners. For the past nearly two decades, Goonj, a non-profit headquartered in New Delhi, has ensured that these cloth items are repurposed and reach people in the remotest parts of the country.

Founded by Anshu Gupta, a Ramon Magsaysay awardee and Ashoka fellow, in 1999, Goonj works on a simple model of material donation — clothes, stationery, dry ration — that creates a constant flow of raw resources for its workshops. The “waste” cloth is then recycled to create small yet remarkably significant items such as cloth sanitary pads to, among other things, tackle the taboo around menstruation. Goonj has, to date, produced nearly three million such pads for women in rural India under its “Not Just a Piece of Cloth” programme. The “School to Shool” programme allows children from far-flung villages in India access to basic stationery, school bags, water bottles and even single-side used paper based on material donations. The ambitious “Cloth for Work” campaign uses clothing and material as wages for community members to dig  wells, build roads, bridges and even local schools in Indian villages.

Workshop on turning waste material into useful handmade product

What began as a venture between Gupta, his wife, Meenakshi, and a few friends today pays 900 employees — daily-wage labourers, community workers, school teachers, health workers, besides its regular team — in its 12 offices, which run programmes in 22 states. Its centres deal with and process 3,000 tonnes of material annually. “Goonj, unlike popular perception, is not about collecting and distributing clothes. It is about providing rural livelihood and dignity to pockets of India that have remained largely ignored,” says Gupta.

A dilapidated aaganwadi turned into a colourful centre in Khandwa, MP

For Gupta, in fact, the instant of association of donating material and clothes with the name “Goonj” has, ironically, held the organisation back. “When a woman goes to the market to buy atta, she pays for the rickshaw. There’s probably a domestic helper to cart it up, or she pays the security guard to do that for her.” Or, take a large manufacturer of oil bottles who needs to discard these. A minimum expense would be to hire the truck to transport the discarded material, let alone disposing of the waste responsibly and legally. “That’s exactly the logistical aspect that people ignore about Goonj. Our work only begins once the clothes and other materials reach our centres. I sit inside a paid godown, I need to pay the transporter, the people working at the workshops are all employees — these are all expenses people forget because of what we have projected ourselves as an organisation,” Gupta explains. 

It is with this in mind that the organisation launched “Team 5000”, a core group of volunteers and members who contribute at least Rs 120,000 annually. The idea behind such a team is to allow people to go beyond being passive donors and become active participants in the organisation’s policies and programmes. 

“I think we have failed when it comes to making people and companies realise that Goonj is not a charity, but that we still need money for our operations,” says Gupta. Corporate social responsibility has been an integral part of Goonj’s campaigns, and yet, Gupta believes that the organisation’s image as a material collector has given companies the wrong impression. “When we went on Kaun Banega Crorepati or even after being recognised with the Ramon Magsaysay award, there was a vast inflow of resource material into our centres, with not enough funds to properly manage this.”

“Unfortunately, it is not in our DNA to ask for money. Which is why we are now planning to relaunch it as ‘Team 10000’ so that at least half our annual budget is met with this money,” says Gupta. Today, Goonj works on an annual budget of Rs 200 — to Rs 220 million, which is frugal considering the scale of its operations. Gupta explains that because the organisation employs a somewhat new economic model where it uses material as currency, it adds to this budget material, local and skill resources worth nearly Rs 1 billion as working capital. “In a nutshell, our working capital is six times of what we effectively spend in terms of money.” Nearly 20 years in and Goonj still continues to make waves.