When the Chittumala block panchayat held its first temporary swap shop, the organisers were quite apprehensive about the response from the public.
They felt people may shun used goods and the effort will go waste with minimal footfall. But the event turned out to be an instant hit prompting them to open a permanent swap shop at the block office.
“We had tremendous feedback when we held our first swap shop almost a year ago. Thousands visited and all the items on display were over within hours. We realised there are takers for reusable stuff in rural areas and started thinking about a permanent facility,” says C. Santhosh, block panchayat president, about the shop that was inaugurated on Tuesday.
Swap shops organised in connection with the Haritha Keralam Mission aims to promote the concept of reuse by collecting unwanted products from households and offering them to people who need it free of charge.
“The idea is to accept anything that can be of use to another person. We are planning to collect the products for a couple of months and then open the shop once every three months,” he says.
Mr. Santhosh adds that on the next opening day the shop will be more of a school market, offering essentials needed for students.
“At present, we are on a collection drive and once we finish that we will hire a couple of workers to mend the items. We are planning to open the shop by May 10 so that shoppers can make their pick before school reopening,” he says.
Chittumala has both pick and drop facilities for collecting products and the entire process is carried out by a network of panchayat members, preraks, anganwadi teachers, Kudumbashree workers, and ST promoters.
Iron boxes, gas stoves, stabilisers, mobile phones, TV sets, sewing machines, CD players, utensils, mobile chargers, artefacts, and cloths were among the items collected by the volunteers.
