Anshu Gupta

Social entrepreneur transforming cloth waste into dignity for India's poor through Goonj

Anshu Gupta founded Goonj in 1999, creating Asia's first organized system for recycling urban textile waste into vital resources for rural India. His Cloth for Work initiative has redirected 3500+ tons of material from landfills while building 16,000+ community infrastructure projects.

Recognizing that 80% of India's population lacks adequate clothing, Gupta developed the ‘Not Just a Piece of Cloth’ menstrual hygiene program, distributing over 10 million cloth pads through grassroots networks. His work redefined philanthropy by treating recipients as partners rather than beneficiaries.

Gupta's circular economy model earned him the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2015. Unlike traditional NGOs, Goonj uses clothing as development currency - villages receive materials in exchange for completing community projects like digging wells or building schools.