Indian NGO recycles old clothes for the poor

Anshu Gupta is like any other social activist. But what makes him stand out is his thought process. “In an earthquake, it is the collapsing buildings that kill people. In floods, the water kills people. But in winter, it is not the cold that kills people, but it’s the lack of adequate clothing that claims lives. So, shouldn’t lack of clothing be considered a disaster?” Gupta reasons.

Founder of NGO Goonj (meaning echo in Hindi), Gupta is co-winner of this year’s Ramon Magsaysay Award. He has been recognised for “his creative vision in transforming the culture of giving in India, his enterprising leadership in treating cloth as a sustainable development resource for the poor, and in reminding the world that true giving always respects and preserves human dignity”.

Even though countless organisations have been working on food, education and health, the most glaring oversight has been in the field of clothing. With the vision that clothes are not about vanity, but about dignity, Goonj has sought to bridge the gap between extreme poverty and affluence by making discarded material of the rich a resource for the poor. “My endeavour is to make people aware that one city can look after several villages,” Gupta says.

While millions of people across the world believe in charity, the difference lies in the manner in which goals are achieved. That’s where Gupta made a beginning. Goonj, founded in 1999, gave recycling a whole new meaning. “What in other peoples’ eyes is waste, I consider it a resource. And that resource is provided to people in dire need of it in remote villages across India,” he says.

Original article by Nilima Pathak

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Indian NGO recycles old clothes for the poor