Anshu Gupta

Career Gupta worked as a freelance journalist after completing his schooling, writing about history, monuments and humanitarian issues . He was a copywriter at Chaitra followed by Power Grid Corporation, and then Escorts Communication.

Goonj In 1999, he started Goonj with his wife, Meenakshi, to work on rural aid using the barter of clothing and other material resources for labour and community development. Beginning with 67 pieces of cloth collected in Sarita Vihar, the organization expanded operation across 28 states and 4000 villages, employing over 1000 workers as of 2022. Goonj also provides aid to victims of natural disasters such as floods and earthquakes.

Anshu Gupta has been called by media as The Clothing Man of India for establishing clothing as an important developmental work.

In "Cloth for Work", communities have built bamboo bridges, dug up wells, done bunding of acres of land, developed small irrigation canals, have built drainage systems, built village schools, repaired roads, and developed water harvesting systems to clean up water bodies. The organization emphasizes the importance of self-reliance in a community.

School to School Goonj's School to School initiative, launched in Coimbatore in 2010, encouraged students in cities to donate school materials to have them redistributed to rural schools.

Not Just a Piece of Cloth Gupta initiated the "Not Just a Piece of Cloth" campaign following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The initiative was started after Gupta observed over a 100 truckloads worth of cloth, deemed unwearable, be discarded as waste. The material was recycled into reusable cotton cloth.

Rahat An earthquake in Uttarkashi triggered Gupta's involvement with disaster relief and rehabilitation. For nearly two decades, he has been working on disasters from earthquakes to tsunamis, cyclones, and floods. Goonj's initiative "Rahat" evolved into an active network of stakeholders in rural and urban India, ensuring timely response for generating need-based disaster relief and rehabilitation efforts.

Recognition

Ramon Magsaysay Award Ashoka and Schwab Fellowship Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award by Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship Forbes magazine listed Gupta as one of India's most powerful rural entrepreneurs AIMA (All India Management Association) Award Marico Innovation Award