Goonj Interview

The New Currency to help people out of Poverty

Would you ask for business advice from a naked person? Would you walk into a corporate office in your underwear?

When you don’t have clothes, people don’t ask you for your expertise, because in many areas of the world, “clothing is the first visible sign of poverty.” 

In today’s episode, our guest is a man who is famous all over India for the work he has done. Also known as “the Clothing man”, Mr. Anshu Gupta started recycling the old waste material people discarded in the inner cities of India 20 years ago and transformed it into clean material that poor people in the countryside could use: this is how GOONJ came to be.

In GOONJ’s eyes, having clothes is a matter of life or death, a matter of justice to take part in primary education, and a matter of personal dignity. This is why they created a new currency to help people help themselves out of poverty: recyclable materials.

The big advantage of this currency is that no one discards money because they have too much, but many of us discard materials. GOONJ has therefore been able to collect enough materials to actually turn it into a new currency.

Simply put, they take unwanted materials people want to discard, clean them and repurpose them for a new person to use. They then pay people in need with these recycled materials in exchange for work they provide which would benefit their community (e.g. infrastructure). 

This doesn’t, of course, completely exclude the financial cost of running an organization like GOONJ: they still need money to cover their logistics costs, amongst other things. 

GOONJ has changed the way people look at charity by adding a new currency to the world. Anshu’s global vision is that everyone starts accepting and using this new currency as an economic model, turning people into stakeholders of their own development. 

Listen to Mr. Anshu’s Ted Talks and other speeches to learn more about how this new currency is transforming people’s lives.

Want to donate to GOONJ? Go ahead. 

Interested in volunteering or interning with GOONJ? Get involved!Are you a retailer with a big batch of products that are going to expire? Reach out and see how you can make a difference.

Great.com is the world’s first online casino affiliate to donate 100% of its revenue. Our mission is to bring the most good in the world, and we believe we can have the most net positive impact by operating within the New Jersey and Sweden gambling market. We’re currently focused on mitigating the global climate crisis and have contributed more than $1.3 million to various environmental charities.