AID-PSU shipped 24 cardboard cartons of clothes. These were collected by donations from local Indians over a period of some months. The quality of the clothes was high---most were barely used. The packing was done by volunteers in a local Indian family's basement in a single afternoon. They were classified into women's, children's and men's clothes and into winter/summer clothes. Each carton was lined with garbage bags and naphtha balls. They were transported to Direct Container Line's Philadelphia office by van and sent by sea, taking around 2 months to arrive. Arpana is going to distribute them in the slum projects that they have and give us feedback for future such efforts

Our clothes collection drive started in August 1997. It started with an idea for a project which wouldn't require much funding. This was important at that time as AID-PSU was only 1 month old. We started the clothes collection, even while we didn't have a good idea where or how to send them. After clothes collection the project was dormant for a long time because we couldn't find shipping companies who would ship it for free. Later (Dec./Jan 98) when we thought a nominal shipping cost may not be a bad idea, we decided to find a suitable shipper. Completing this project was important from the point of view of the maintaining volunteer's enthusiasm and the good faith of all the donors who had contributed the clothes (these were collected way back in August and were just sitting at various collection points)

The clothes collected from the local community were shipped to the Arpana Project in New Delhi on February 9, where volunteers from Arpana collected them and distributed them at their projects. A large portion of the clothes are warm clothes which will be useful in the Delhi winters. All were of good or extremely good quality. The total volume of clothes was 24 cardboard cartons, 1.8 cubic metres and the total cost of shipping (with a discount) was $255 plus the cost of gas to transport them to Philly. The shipping company was Direct Container Line (http://www.dclusa.com). Our thanks to Mr. Kaushik Patel of its Philadelphia office (215-744-3725) for his help. Here are the letters we needed to fax to Arpana.

The clothes have been received and distributed. Here are the emails from Arpana. It is important to make sure that the name on the shipping invoice is the name of the person who will actually collect the clothes, else a consignee change form has to be submitted. Also, the two letters proving to the customs officials that the clothes will not be resold and are charitable donations should be sent along with the clothes or sent to arrive before they do so that there is no hitch at collection.

In Dec 1998 we sent warm clothing for children to Aravinda, an AID Fellow in Bombay for use in a school. We sent the clothes through people flying to India for the holidays and this proved to be a cost effective way of sending them, except for the within India shipping cost for those carriers not flying to Bombay.

[13 Dec 1998]