What a fantastic concept!

Goonj is a well-known NGO; shooting into prominence after its innovative concept of collecting used clothes and distributing them to the poorest became a revolution. It extended this idea to toys. Today, Goony collects and delivers 1,000 tons of material every year through a network of 500 volunteers and 250 partners. It also runs infrastructure and local development projects in villages and slum areas.

They have now come out with another fantastic concept. Collecting used wedding dresses and recycling them for use in rural India. It delivers something known as Wedding Kits, made from wedding apparel and other new material collected from urban India, to women and families. A typical Wedding Kit includes the wedding dress for the bride and bridegroom, general clothing, footwear, purse, makeup box, cosmetics, jewelry, bed sheets and a set of utensils.

Goonj first collects the wedding apparel from cities and carefully sorts them out. It then puts together a collection of new, fancier clothes by modifying the material donated. The organisation does due diligence about the economic condition of the recipient families, and then distributes the Wedding Kits through the local Panchayats, giving rural brides and bridegrooms, as well as their families, the chance to wear new clothes and accessories.

It also distributes Pandaal Kits, a collection of basics like utensils, blankets, daris, in large quantities, to village communities. The aim of Goonj is to help bring down the cost, especially expenses of wedding which for most villagers is back breaking, sometimes even life taking.