Meet the ‘Clothing Man’ in India- how Goonj is making an impact in rural India

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Famously known as the clothing man of India, Anshu Gupta started a mission to provide one of the basic human needs to his society in India. Mr. Gupta along with his wife, collected only 67 pieces of garments from his locality in India in 1999 with the aim to bridge the gap between extreme poverty and affluence. That tiny step transformed into a revolution which now has become one of the largest social enterprise ventures in India. Till date, Goonj operates in 21 states in India, transferred more than 1000 tonnes of used clothes and other household goods and touched the lives of people in other areas such as – education, health, access to water, better infrastructure. Goonj started as a social enterprise which was engaged in relief work. It used to collect used clothing from the urban crowd, sort them, fix and later distribute among the poor and needy people in areas such as – Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Slowly it scaled up and started working in other areas which include –

Access to water for agriculture and livestock
Disaster Relief & Rehabilitation
Access and Infrastructure
Access to better education
Menstrual Health

In this part of ImpacTale, find more information about Goonj:

Name of the social enterprise venture: Goonj

Year founded: 1999

Name of the social entrepreneur: Anshu Gupta

Country: India

Type of venture: Non-profit organisation

Mission:

Goonj envisions to grow as an idea across regions, economies and countries using urban discard as a tool to alleviate poverty and enhance the dignity of the underprivileged people of the world. Address basic but neglected issues of the poor by involving them in evolving their own solutions with dignity and urban material as reward.

Key impacts:

Founder of Goonj, Anshu Gupta has received many national and international accolades. One of its recent achievement is being part of Google’s financial support to non-profits which are working for COVID relief. Besides, the founder of Goonj, Mr. Gupta has received some of the biggest recognitions of the world in the social entrepreneurship domain which include – Ramon Magsaysay Award, Ashoka Fellowship, Social Entrepreneur of the Year’ Award by Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship.