On behalf of millions of people in India and the rest of the world, our sincere thanks for this acknowledgment. This award is recognition to the many ‘taken for granted, non-issues,’ and the viable solutions which lie amongst us. In an era of machines, this is a recognition to the needles. We see cloth as a needle in the holistic human development process, and a piece of cloth in the form of a sanitary pad as a needle in the bigger struggle for dignity for millions of women.
We don’t want to change the world; we are ordinary people, we want to improve it first. We strongly feel that somewhere, something is wrong. Because despite a whole lot of us in this room and many similar rooms across the globe who are applying so much intellect, resources, good intentions and hard work to improve our societies, poverty and other troubling issues are not getting resolved. The gap is growing, the issues becoming more complicated.
Perhaps it is time for us to change our vocabulary, to remove demeaning words like “donor” and “beneficiary,” and treat everyone as a stakeholder. It’s time to change the meaning of disaster and accept that half the world doesn’t need a disaster, as poverty is the biggest ongoing disaster. It’s time to stop imposing development agendas and policies, and listen to the people whom these decisions affect. It’s time to reduce charity and dignify giving. It’s time to re-look into our knowledge and intellect and value the wisdom of the grassroots. It’s time to stop treating money as the only currency in the world and start looking for parallel currencies for development.
Today thousands of tonnes of second-hand material, so far treated worldwide as disaster relief material or charitable subject-object, constitute our organization’s currency. Goonj’s ‘Cloth for Work’ invites communities to choose their own problem—whether it is a broken road or a dirty pond, whatever is a real concern—work on that with your wisdom, pay back to the nation in a currency you have—called “labor”—and you are rewarded in a currency that people of the nation have—called “material.” It is about the barter between these two new currencies, labor and material, creating a new economic model. Maybe somewhere in this process is the genesis of a parallel economy which is not cash-based but trash-based.
I hope that when the celebrations around this year’s award are over, there will be some people out there—from the governments, academia, development sector, research organizations, policy makers, opinion leaders and decision makers—who will see this work as a possibility which can turn the tide on the colossal waste we all are facing.
This world is the world of volume. The problems are in volume. We do need solutions in volume and the people who work on those are also needed in volume. No need to have intellectual debates on either/or. It is about AND. Right now we do need more and many different solutions.
We have just been able to touch upon some issues in our part of the world. Goonj is a constructive and positive movement by the common people, for the common people. With all humility from this prestigious stage, we want to give a copyright for others to copy our ideas. Do copy, replicate, add more wisdom and take our Goonj solution to other nations, geographies and communities. Let’s see what can be achieved with the world’s so-called waste. For us, the mission is to grow as an idea and not just as an organization.
I do have high hopes for the youth, even as they are the most troubled with the present; the future is in their hands. In the end, doing good is a collective responsibility and we all truly want to live in a better world.
Thank you for listening and calling us here. I dedicate this beautiful day and this award to my parents—up above watching as shining stars; my family; the amazing Goonj team for standing together in the best and worst of times; the volunteers, and the people of my country, for being with us. Thank you and Jai Hind.
