Your Onward Clothes Become "Blankets for Hope"
Recycled blankets produced from Onward's collected clothing are donated to poor households in Tajikistan

Onward Holdings Co. Ltd. (Head Office: Chuo-ku, Tokyo; President and CEO: Michinobu Yasumoto) donated 4,000 recycled blankets produced from its collected clothing to the Red Crescent Society of Tajikistan with the cooperation of the Japanese Red Cross Society. On Wednesday, November 27, a donation ceremony was held in the Rasht district of Tajikistan, where our company employees handed recycled blankets directly to local residents.

Based on the Onward Group mission statement of "Enriching and adding color to people's lives while caring for the planet," our company promotes management in harmony with the Earth. As part of this effort, we have been conducting the Onward Green Campaign since 2009, in which we collect used Onward clothing for reuse and recycling. Since 2010, we have donated a total of 45,500 recycled blankets including this latest donation made from some of the collected clothing to disaster areas in Japan and abroad as well as to developing countries and other recipients.

Tajikistan, the 14th recipient of our support activities, is a republic located in Central Asia. In recent years it has experienced remarkable economic development, recording a real GDP growth rate of 8.3% in 2023. However, the poverty rate remains high, and the country remains the poorest in Central Asia, with widening regional disparities and delayed social development. Furthermore, about 93% of the country is classified as mountainous, with many of those mountains located along earthquake faults. As a result, frequent natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, landslides, and avalanches threaten Tajikistan's economic and social development.

The 4,000 recycled blankets donated by Onward will be distributed by the Red Crescent Society of Tajikistan to households that have suffered severe damage to their homes due to floods and other disasters, families where women are the sole breadwinners, households with many children or elderly members as well as other individuals in need of support, such as persons with disabilities and tuberculosis patients.

In the nearly 15 years since its inception, the Onward Green Campaign has collected approximately 8.3 million items of clothing from a cumulative total of approximately 1.6 million customers. New recycled blankets will be produced from some of the collected clothing and will be used to support disaster-stricken areas in Japan and abroad.