It starts with a series of questions..-When we talk of basic needs, we say food, cloth & shelter. Then why in lists of development subjects, from domestic violence to global warming, clothing is not listed as subject? Why basic need of entire human kind is treated as disaster relief material? Why women's universal need of piece of cloth as sanitary pas is non-issue, forcing millions to use sand, ash, jute bags, husk, newspaper instead. Why do we treat cloth as mere charitable object-to donate!!
Goonj works on turning old material as resource for hundreds of rural development activities. Communities have built huge bamboo bridges, dug up wells, developed small irrigation canals, have built drainage systems, built village schools and have taken up massive exercise of repairing roads, developing water harvesting systems to clean up ponds. All these are done not by paying wages to people but by making them understand of their own community power and by using old material as reward. Goonj is using urban material as an entry point into people's lives. This is a work where not only underutilized material fills up gaps of resources in development works but also dignifies act of Giving.