The International Clothing Aid Program: 19 Tonnes a Month, and What We Accept Now

From 2013 until 2026, a shipping container left Sydney every month carrying nineteen tonnes of clothing and shoes. It went to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and parts of Africa. By the charity’s own reckoning it reached more than a million people. It was the least visible thing House of Sadaqa did, and by weight it was the largest.

That program ended in 2026. House of Sadaqa’s clothing work is entirely local: new and near-new clothing and items, given to the families we support and sold through our Goodwill Shops to fund that support. This is the story of what the International Clothing Aid Program was, and what donating looks like today.

What we accept now

The current standard is new and near-new. Donated items go directly to families rebuilding a home, or onto the racks at our Goodwill Shops in Revesby and Bankstown, where sales fund local family support.

• Yes: new and near-new clothing for men, women and children
• Yes: shoes with plenty of wear left, homewares, kitchenware and small household items
• Yes: clean, undamaged bedding and linen
• Yes: new socks and underwear, always needed and rarely donated
• No: torn, stained or heavily worn items
• No: single shoes, wet or mouldy textiles, used underwear
• No: broken appliances or furniture needing repair

Drop-offs go to the Revesby warehouse at 6/60 Marigold St, or the Goodwill Shop at 6/212 South Terrace, Bankstown. Our guide to donating clothes in Sydney covers times and access.

Why the standard is higher than it used to be

This is worth explaining, because it can look like the charity has become fussier.

When clothing was being shipped by the tonne, volume was the point. A container needed filling, and a garment that was merely serviceable still clothed someone who had nothing. The economics of bulk aid forgive a lot.

Local giving does not work that way. Every item now goes to a named family in Sydney, or onto a shop rack where it has to compete for a paying customer. A mother restarting a home after leaving a violent relationship should not be handed a bag of someone’s worn-out jumpers. It is a question of dignity, and it is also a question of cost: items that cannot be used still have to be sorted, stored and disposed of, and that consumes money meant for families.

The simplest test has not changed. Would you give it to a friend? If not, it is not suitable.

What the program was

The International Clothing Aid Program ran from 2013 to 2026, launching three years after the charity itself. By then the Castle Hill garage operation had grown enough that donated clothing was arriving faster than Sydney families could use it. Rather than send the surplus to landfill, House of Sadaqa began containerising it.

A single 19-tonne container held a great deal: tens of thousands of garments, sorted by season and size, packed to survive weeks at sea. One left every month.

Reached over a million people around the world.

Rob (Bilal) Laidlaw, founder of House of Sadaqa, on the International Clothing Aid Program

Why it made sense at the time

Clothing is an awkward form of aid. It is bulky, low in value per kilogram and expensive to move. Cash is almost always more efficient. So why ship it?

Because that clothing was already donated, already sorted and already in a warehouse. The alternative was not cash, it was a landfill fee. Australia sends an enormous volume of wearable textiles to landfill each year, and a charity that already collected and stored clothing was unusually well placed to redirect some of it. The marginal cost was the container and the freight, not the goods.

That same logic still drives our landfill-to-lifeline work and the Goodwill Shops. Goods that cannot be given directly to a family are sold locally, and that revenue funds family support in Sydney.

Where the focus is now

Local. The Family Support Program takes roughly one new referral every two days, around 80% of applicants are women, and most have two or three children. Clothing, furniture and whitegoods go to those families directly.

Alongside that, the monthly outreach at Martin Place distributes clothing, shoes, sleeping bags, gloves and beanies to people sleeping rough in the Sydney CBD. Same warehouse, same sorting tables, a shorter journey.

Frequently asked questions