A piece of cloth and sanitation

PROFILE: Goonj

The five days of menstruation that visit a woman every month can be her worst nightmare if she has no piece of cloth not to speak a clean cloth, to use as a napkin.

Goonj is catering to this unmet need of women and plans to reach 19 states of India where it works.

It is a need that is almost never mentioned in both governmental or non-governmental welfare measures for women.

Goonj, started by Anshu Gupta, does this by a massive collection drive of old clothes from cities, creating 10,000 units of Goonj brand of clean cloth napkins every month.

Recently, this project became the finalist in the Global Marketplace competition of the World Bank. It is among 105 best ideas chosen from 2,900 entries. The top 25 will get the prize.

Anshu says "I'm not worried about the prize. I'm happy that now the idea of reaching old clothes in the form of sanitary wear for women is embraced by many around the globe.

"Women need a cloth for five days every month. Since it is considered to be pollution, women use the dirtiest cloth in the house, something that has been used to clean the floors. And because it is imperative that the cloth be hidden from the neighbours, the cloth does not ever see the light of the day," says Gupta.

"In some cases, there are usually two or three women in a household, and they all use the same cloth. In this context of shame, and extreme health-risks, we often overlook this reality and give them lectures on reproductive health and maternity care," adds Gupta.

His organisation today has grown into a virtual cloth bank for the country's poor with Goonj acting as a channel to circulate clothes from urban excess zones to villages and to slums through links with NGOs, self-help groups and even the Indian army.

A separate wing of Goonj is dedicated to sterilizing the unwearable cloth from this lot and turning it into simple sanitary pads to be distributed in villages and slums.

Keshav Chaturvedi, a close associate of Goonj, is an unassuming middle class man living in a flat in Delhi's Mayur Vihar. No one would suspect his flat doubles up as a collection centre for old clothes from thousands of donors from around the area. Every week, a vehicle from Goonj comes to collect whatever has piled up over the week.

www.goonj.info