A mobile cloth bank for a noble cause

KOCHI:With new trends in clothing and fashion coming up, we often tend to throw old clothes so that we can buy some new ones. This unending activity of ours leads to environmental pollution. Nobody has enough time to give it to the needy people. To find a solution to this, a group of youngsters are working towards providing clothing to the needy with the tagline ‘Cloth for All’.

The result of their initiative is the cloth collecting machine installed opposite to the Pareeksha Bhavan in Thiruvananthapuram. In December, when Fazil Musthafa who was working as a sales executive in Dubai came for his vacation, he was struck by the idea of installing a cloth collecting box in the state. He took up the initiative of creating a giving culture among people and started looking for groups in each part of the state who would work towards uplifting the under-privileged people in the society. “When I came up with this idea of installing cloth collecting boxes, I wanted to spread an awareness among more people so I didn’t want it to be a thing followed by just a few people,” he said.

The cloth collecting box has been specially designed and Fazil took the responsibility of maintaining it by appointing volunteers he met on Facebook in different districts. It is six feet in height and has enough space to accommodate many clothes. Once a person puts the clothes inside the box, it cannot be taken back. It is maintained neatly by the volunteers.

Fazil said, “This plan should not just stay with me and my friends but more people should be aware of the importance of sharing things and so we wanted to install it in all the districts. Instead of stacking up the old clothes in our cupboards, it can be given to the deserving people.”

One of these cloth collecting boxes was installed near to schools in Sultan Bathery so schoolchildren can understand how they are the privileged ones and create in them a feeling of giving.The clothes that are put in has to be washed and folded. This, Fazil said, shows how much love one has while bringing these clothes. Even, the places where these boxes are installed have been chosen carefully, collaborating with the small organisations in the area to make it more happening.

Other members of Fazil’s team include Malik Mohammed, Krishna Kumar, Syyad Siddique and Rasheed. The clothes are distributed in old age homes, orphanages, slums and autism centres.  In Thiruvananthapuram, since the instalment of the box, it got filled seven times. Fazil intends to connect this cloth bank with Kudumbashree and consider it as one of the development projects of Kerala Government.