“GOONJ…A Voice, an effort”

Goonj is the first one to highlight clothing as a basic but an unaddressed need which deserves a place on development agendas. Creating value by re-positioning discard of urban households as a development resource for villages, Goonj has amazingly evolved the genesis of a parallel economy- which is not ‘Cash’ based but ‘Trash’ based. Implementing two powerful new currencies for development work, i.e., Material and Labor.

During Uttar Yatra we would be understanding Goonj’s vision and highly efficient implementation model withstanding even in most difficult terrains of Uttarakhand.

“Cloth For Work”

Goonj works on turning old material as a resource for hundreds of rural development activities. Communities have built huge bamboo bridges, dug up wells, have done bunding of acres of land, developed small irrigation canals, have built drainage systems, built village schools and have taken up massive exercises of repairing roads, developing water harvesting systems  to cleaning  up water bodies. All these works are done not by paying wages to people but by making them understand their own community power, using old material as a reward. Goonj is using material from the cities as an entry point into people’s lives. This is a work where not only the old underutilized material fills up the gaps of resources in development works but is also dignifying the act of Giving, now thousands of people don’t get material as charity or donation but earn as reward in lieu of their work.