Goonj, an initiative by Anshu Gupta and his partner Meenakshi Gupta, is one of the few organisations built around the culture of giving but keeping the dignity of recipients intact. What started out as an initiative to provide proper clothing, today has expanded into a full fledged network of rural innovation present in 21 states in partnerships with over 250 grassroots organisations. Goonj has a formal team of around 180 people apart from its vast army of volunteers.
So far they have initiated innovative projects such as ‘Cloth for work’ project which encourages communities to undertake developmental projects with clothes and materials as a reward. ‘Not Just a Piece of Cloth’ is their award winning program that produces ‘cheap and effective sanitary napkins’ to address the various health and hygiene issues of female menstruation among rural women in the country.
Apart from its own initiatives, Goonj was also involved with relief efforts in the 1999 Chamoli earthquake, the 2008 Bihar floods, 2009 Assam floods and the recent flood disaster in Uttarakhand (2013).
