The Gujarat government is using very innovative methods to provide employment opportunities to the youth of the African-orgin , Sidi community.They came to India as slaves around 500 years ago. The population of the community is around 10, 000 in Gujarat .The government has planned to create “Little Africa” on the periphery of the Gir forest, which is going to be a theme based resort.

Pallavi Shukla, senior consultant to the state government for the project, said that development work would start by March 2010 and the resort would be functional in three years.

“Around 200 Sidi youth will get direct employment. Besides, there would be plenty of indirect employment opportunities as a ‘gram haat’ to display Sidi handicraft will be set up. Every evening there would be cultural events featuring Sidi ‘Dhamal’ dance troupe, which is very popular,” said Shukl

The IBM on the other hand will support the project . “The Rs 10-crore project, excluding the cost of land, would be fully funded by the Gujarat government. IBM will provide expertise to select a private partner to run the resort. It will also provide consultancy to market this ‘Little Africa’ across the world to lure maximum tourists,” said Per Yorgansen, project manager, IBM Denmark, who is in Ahmedabad for IBM’s Corporate Service Corps (CSC) program.

The resort would typically look like a Sidi village. Care has been take that the resort has the African look & feel. The resort would also have a museum.

Source: 

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/IBM-to-help-create-Little-Africa-in-Gujarat/articleshow/5214160.cms

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 25th, 2009 at 9:58 pm and is filed under Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.