Help neglected communities solve their problems

Program Update

Cloth for Work' is an award-winning initiative which creates a barter between urban and rural communities. Itinvolves use of local skills, enterprises, labor, raw materials and indigenous knowledge of the local community to undertake big projects like making bridges, making/repairing roads and similar voluminous development activities

Goonj opens up a dialogue on problem afflicting the villagers, encourages local community participation and ownership in resolving issues their own issues.

Instead of moving ahead with a set agenda and framework for implementation, efforts are customized according to the needs of the local communities and their priorities hence fostering bottom up approach for inclusive development in the region.. .

Communities are rewarded with Goonj’s comprehensive “Family kits” comprising basic essentials like clothes, shoes, utensils, blankets, woolens, utility items for their efforts.

As such, Goonj’s circular repositioning of urban wastes as powerful resource is not just an economic model, an approach but a transformative movement ensuring societal changes at the grassroot level with higher cross-sectiol civic engagement and a more equitable disposition of resources between urban and rural strata. With total of 4280 effective “Cloth For Work” activities this year, Goonj aspires to grow more as an idea, a movement and an instrument of change.

Story from the field

It is no secret that India’s water crisis has escalated to alarming levels… With traditiol sources of water like wells, ponds and rivers fast dwindling, the rural communities are worst affected.

Here is a story from (Alkal village, Raichur, Kartaka). Regular water crisis drove 160+ parched villagers to dig a farm pond in their area to accumulate rain water for farming.
Encouraged by Goonj, people dug 60ft*40ft pond with a depth of 5ft in just two days!! Improved groundwater level means better agricultural productivity.

The locals were rewarded with Goonj’s comprehensive “Family Kits” for their hard work.

Here is another story from the villages of Palghar dist. in Maharashtra. When a community in a village meeting decided to take up the task of cleaning their wells and the area surrounding it, over 100 villagers participated in a span of 13 days to clean 6 wells just before monsoon.

One such case was of the well in urgent need of repairs with holes leading to slush all around creating a breeding ground for mosquitoes. When Goonj team encouraged the people to take action, they not only rebuilt the well boundary and platform but also made separate washing area in just 2 days.

Women of Devgharpada had a long sigh of relief once the cleaning and repair work was undertaken. As a part of collective hard work of 17 villagers for 5 days, there was tremendous change in hygiene maintence of the local water resources.

“This well is a source of water for 250+ people. The filth around it made it difficult to reach it. Now women of our families don’t have to worry while carrying water.” exclaimed Nilesh, from the village.