This document discusses the work of GOONJ, a nonprofit organization based in India. GOONJ works to address the basic need of clothing that is often overlooked compared to other basic needs like food and shelter. It collects reusable materials like clothes and books from urban areas and distributes them to rural and impoverished communities for dignity and development purposes. Some of GOONJ's initiatives include nationwide awareness campaigns about clothing as a basic need, exchanging clothes for labor on development projects, and recycling materials into sanitary pads, notebooks, and other useful items. The intern contributed to GOONJ by organizing collection drives and book fairs to gather donations and creating a database of schools.

1. By:
Sushmita Golder
SY-C
PRN: 13020621266
Roll No.: 2173

2. Why clothing?
 Three basic needs of mankind- roti, kapda aur makaan (food, clothing and
shelter) But most people/ agencies work only on food and shelter.
 But what about clothing?
A basic need noticed only at the time of disaster..
Reality-more than half of this country doesn't need a disaster to be
helped.
 A range of issues right from domestic violence to global warming for
development agencies
BUT no mention of clothing? It has never been an issue -to work.. To
support.
 Figures for people dying in earthquakes, floods and other natural or man
made disasters..
 What about winters? -An annual and predictable disaster affecting life of
thousands of people every year. A warm cloth we hold in our cupboards (in
search of a real needy or waiting for a disaster) can help prevent these
deaths ?
 What does a poor woman do during menses every month?
Oblivious of the health risk some are even forced to use sand or ash. Millions
who don't have enough cloth to cover themselves end up using the most
useless & dirty cloth.

3. Mission statement
We aim to re-position cloth beyond charity, add
dignity and turn it into a big resource for
development.
Our objective is to spread awareness about the
concept at a nationwide level so that anytime an
urban household thinks of disposing off reusable
material it should have a channel to reach it to the
most needy. Using clothing as an entry point,
channelize a whole lot of under utilized household
material considered wastage in urban India, as
resource to the rural/slum India.

5. Initiatives
 Vastra-samman- A nationwide movement highlighting
cloth as a basic need and mark of dignity.
 Cloth for work- Villagers get clothes as motivation for
initiating development activities in their own area.
 School to School- Sensitising urban schools to the
educational needs of their counterparts in remote village
schools. Channelising school material from one end to the
other by building a long term relationship among them.
 Not Just a piece of cloth- Turning old cotton cloth into
sanitary napkins for women in slums and villages.
 Rahat- Reaching relief and supporting victims of natural
and manmade disasters.
 Recycling: a step ahead- Making notebooks, schoolbags,
skipping ropes, balls, sitting mats etc. from waste paper &
cloth.

6. How do they do it?
URBAN INDIA
Collection Centers
(houses of our volunteers)
GOONJ Processing hub
(Need based sorting and packaging)
Implementation in
the remote villages
(under GOONJ’s various initiatives)

7. Just some important facts..
 Over the last two years, over 900 development
activities AND..
 Over 2.1 million pieces of clothes
 Over 300,000 pieces of educational material and
stationery items
 Over 200,000 pieces of toys and games
 200,000 kg of cloth turned into quilts (sujni) by
village women
 2 million sanitary pads from waste cloth which
mean taking care of 500,000 metres of cloth
 Channelizing a million kg of material utility

8. And all this in a budget of approx.
(about half a million USD) anually..

9. Achievements
 Nov’10: Listed in Forbes as one of the India's most powerful rural entrepreneurs
 May’10:Innovation for India award by Marico for developing innovative solution by using
old cloth and other material.
 March‟10:Jamnalal Bajaj CFBP Award for „Fair Practices‟
 Oct’09: Cloth for Work‟ wins L ien i3 Challenge Award in Singapore
 June’09: „Not just a piece of cloth‟ wins Ashoka‟s Changemakers Innovation Award
 March’09: CNN IBN‟s ‘Real Heros’ Award to Mr. Anshu Guptain women welfare segment.
 March’08: GOONJ wins the prestigious 'India NGO of the year‘ Award
 May’07: „Not just a piece of cloth‟ wins World Bank’s Global Development Market Place
Award.
 July’07: GOONJ‟s first initiative “Vastra Samman” recognized as one of „The Good
Practices’ in Dubai International Awards.
 2006: Won Ashoka‟s prestigious Changemakers Innovation Award, the second time, for
its disaster relief initiative „RAHAT‟.
 2004:Prestigious Ashoka Fellowship to Anshu Gupta.
 2004: GOONJ wins Chanemakers Innovation Award for its “SCHOOL to SCHOOL”
initiative.Recognitions

13. Some of GOONJ’s initiative’s with
partner organisations

15. My Contribution as an intern
 Carried out two collection
drives and two book fairs- One
at Shivalaya Tower and the
other at Shyamnarayan
Zagdusingh Thakur
Entertainment Park. Both at
Kandivali East, Mumbai.
 Sorted and priced the books to
be put up for the book fair.
 Created a database of schools
in Thane and Mumbai districts.
Attached the database and
submitted it.
 Sorted out books and
stationary for village schools.

16. The collection drives and book fairs

17. Learning
Being Associated with GOONJ was a great experience. It was a
great opportunity to learn the various facets and aspects of NGO
functioning which can be summarized as follows:-
 Learnt a lot about NGOs functioning, their vision, objectives and
the problems it faces in the various departments like finance,
marketing and others.
 Also understood the initiative taken by private institutions as a
part of corporate governance social responsibility and its impact
on the society.
 Studied about how to help the society and what GOONJ is doing
in this field.
 It broadened my horizon about thinking about life and spurred
me to think about helping the poor and needy in our society.