I am looking for historians, researchers, academics or religious bodies who would like to participate in a project to create a computer-based database of Indian Indentured Immigrants. These records now in the archives are decaying and will soon disappear. This project is in its infancy, but with a pro-active core of people it can become a reality.

The goal of this project is to create a computer-based database [retrievable on-line and available to archives, academics, libraries and the general public], with personal details of Indian indentured labourers in Guyana. This project can be expanded to include other indentured labourers such as the Chinese and the Portuguese. Supporting us will be the University of Suriname, which has successfully completed such a project on the Hindustani, Javanese and Chinese immigrants. Our goal is to get the support of the History Department of the University of Guyana. After the technical infrastructure is put into place, soliciting funds will be next.

What is needed in Guyana?

1. A person at the archives in Guyana who wants to act as a paid project manger in Guyana. That person will do the following:

a. Organise the technical infrastructure (computers, transport of documents if the computers are at another location than the physical documents

b. Organise the data-input (people, schedule, data control etc)

c. Draw up a project document for funds application Please contact me at the following address:
Raymond Chickrie
rchickrie@hotmail.com