Contribute to Rural Household and Community Development with Goonj..

Background

Climate change is showing huge impact on our environment. Increasing amount of waste and its mismanagement is directly contributing to massive GHG emissions. Landfills, the last resort in the waste hierarchy, is a source of greenhouse gas linked to climate change. The ill-effects have been severe in spaces where people’s livelihood depends on natural resources. Thus, the well-being of millions of households in rural and tribal belts of India is getting affected. Dependent on natural resources and climate, the worst hit agriculture and allied sectors employ more than half of the workforce. Majority of farmers in India also have small and marginal holdings. Furthermore, the pandemic has severely affected lives and livelihoods across rural India.

Our Model

Goonj’s flagship initiative Cloth for Work uses the cities’ discard for fueling widespread development work for the most neglected communities in the most neglected geographies in areas that have a long-standing impact on their development such as infrastructure, water, livelihood, sanitation, health, and hygiene, etc.

Our work with communities happens in simultaneous cycles across the country :

Step 1 - Cumulation of urban surplus headed for discard 

Step 2 - Recycling and upcycling of this urban surplus into kits. Supplementing it with other essentials not raised in sufficient quantities.  

Step 3 - Mobilizing and motivating communities to identify, prioritise and solve their own issues using locally available resources, efforts and traditional wisdom. This includes communities coming together to conduct grassroot development activities like digging of wells, making of bamboo bridges, sanitation drives, building of kitchen gardens, road repair, etc.

Step 4 - Channelisation of a kit of essentials as a reward to household to reduce material poverty

Contribute to our initiative and let us take forward the mission of reaching out to even the last mile communities forward.