An inter-ministerial online meeting under the Road to Engagement (RTE) project, chaired by the Minister of Arts and Cultural Heritage, Mr. Avinash Teeluck, was held this afternoon at the Beekrumsing Ramlallah Interpretation Centre in Port Louis.
This first inter-ministerial meeting organized by the Republic of Mauritius was attended by 11 ministers in charge of arts, culture, and heritage from different countries where the hired workers are permanently established. The Prime Minister, Mr. Pravind Kumar Jugnauth, also spoke at the meeting.
In his statement at the online inter-ministerial committee meeting held this afternoon under the Indentured Labour Route Project (ILRP), Prime Minister Pravind Kumar Jugnauth reiterated the need to raise awareness of the indentured labour experience worldwide.
According to the Prime Minister, this project will not only create a network of people and institutions within the contract worker diaspora, but will also contribute to nation-building efforts, resulting in better understanding between the people and societies of the contract worker diaspora and the countries themselves.
The purpose of the meeting was to exchange views on the implementation of the ERP in the different countries and on the creation of an international database collecting historical testimonies, including archives, related to the history of contract labor.
Several presentations were made during the meeting, namely: the ERP, the international database on indentured labor, and the cultural perspective on the legacy of the diaspora of indentured workers in different countries.
On the same occasion, the International Database on Engagement project was launched. This project aims to reconstruct the history of migration using modern technologies that will facilitate the study of the demographic history of the population.
