Tribal Girl Shabnam Bashir organises ‘Explore the Village Tourism’ Campaign in Bandipora

Abdul Basit

Bandipora, March 12: Shabnam Bashir Gojer Chichi- a tribal girl from Bandipora known for promoting the tribal culture and tourism in the UT,  last weekend organised a “Explore the Village Tourism” campaign in far flung areas of the Bandipora district.

         The freelance promoter of tourism especially in tribal areas, lead dozens of youngsters in Yali, Tangath, Check Mantrigam villages and adjoining habitations and engaged in several cultural and sports activities with an aim to sensitize the local population about the tourism potential of their villages besides informing the next generation about range of traditional cultural activities.

         Chichi along with youngsters moved from door-to-door and informed the men and women about the importance of tourism and the opportunities of employment generation owing to the tourism.

         She said she informed the local population about the home stays and urged them to avail the benefit of government schemes to prepare a room in their house so that tourists can stay when needed.

         Shabnam said these villages are the last villages in Bandipora on Gurez road and are frequented by tourists who visit Gurez valley. “If these villagers are able to provide such facilities to tourists, they can fetch a good economic activity in these areas,” the young tribal girl who received accolades from Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha during his monthly Awaam ki Awaaz programme for promoting the tribal culture and tourism.

         She said these villages are most backward and tourism has been the only option for them to improve their livelihood. She said she will focus on such villages and go door-to-door to motivate these people to take a lead to trap tourism potential of these villages.

         Later the group also organised several cultural activities including traditional folk dances etc besides organised sports events including cricket , Kabadim Kho-Kho, garma-Garm Sher -Bakri etc.

A group of youngsters and old people also participated in a short trek from Check Mantrigam to Yali and later upto Tangath village.

         Shabnam said these activities helped the new generation to get acquainted with their roots by getting to know about their old traditional sports, music, dances and other recreational activities.

         She said the young generation has been disturbed by the smart phones as they spend most of the time indoors taking a toll on their health. She said activities like these aimed to imbibe in them the interest to participate in such activities for their overall development.