Members of BD of Barakat Foundation, an affiliated foundation of EIKO, met Dr. Ali Asghar Moonesan, Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization and introduced and reviewed the sustainable development initiative of Hormoz Island.
In the last February, a memorandum of understanding on an pervasive and sustainable development of Hormoz Island was signed by both Dr. Muhammad Mokhber, Head of EIKO, and Dr. Fereydun Hemmati, governor-general of Hormozgan Province. This MOU of signed in order to realize considerations of Ayatollah Khamenei, The Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, on eradication of poverty and resistive economy with a credit of 3776 billion rials.
Pervasive and sustainable development of Island Hormoz, deprivation reduction, prosperity and eradication of poverty, economic, social and cultural empowerment of people, encouraging people, government and private sectors to contribute, helping to reduce social hams, increasing satisfaction and life expectancy in people, increasing the population and encouraging reverse migration to the island and helping to development of infrastructures needed to the island are among purposes defined for the MOU.
According to the MOU, Baraket Foundation as the representative of the Execution of Imam Khomeini Order, is responsible for planning, preparing and implementing the Islamic-Iranian model of pervasive and sustainable development in the Hormoz Island.
Attracting contribution and domestic and foreign capitals, designing management and strategic structure of the initiative, choosing the mother consultant to steer the project, providing consultation services and empowering the local society and supplying financial resources, which must be supplied by EIKO, are other commitments of EIKO.
According to this MOU, Hormozgan Provincial Government is also responsible for facilitation and helping to tackle with the executive obstacles, paving the way and preparing facilities and requirements, helping to attract bank low-interest loans and supplying financial resources which must be supplied by the Hormozgan provincial government. Moreover, assisting in supplying human resources, making efforts to issue required permits for construction, implementation and operationalization, application of integrated management in all stages of design, formation and launching executive structure of the project are among other commitments of Hormozgan Provincial Government as this MOU states.
In this meeting, Dr. Asgari Azad, Head of BD of Baraket Foundation, said, “Preparing the development outlook of Hormoz Island which enjoys a special strategic position, unique nature and proximity to Bandar Abbas port has started two years ago and it has been prepared for about 9 months and will be implemented since end of the last year.”
“The main development approach of the Hormoz Island is based on tourism and it has been tried to provide people with development in this project”, he added.
Head of Barakat Foundation stated, “In sustainable development project of Hormoz Island we need assistance and contemplation of Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization in order to be able to implement development initiative as best as possible.”
In this meeting, Engineer Saeed Jafari, managing director of Barakat Foundation, said, “In this project, cooperation between all executive departments and entities are supposed to enable social and cultural development of Hormoz Island and at the same time to preserve its identity. We need to define a development pivot which can generate incomes for people and to generate sustainable development and also providing a condition in which tourists may take advantage of welfare and accommodation facilities etc.”
Managing director of Barakat Foundation added: “Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization can help us to develop Hormoz Island with an approach based on handicrafts and tourism. This cooperation may result in good outcomes and consequences to develop other regions in Ira; because we have unique regions in this regard in the country, if Hormoz Island Development can be considered as a ring of the tourism chain, we will witness a great outcome in the coming future.”
Cooperation to Develop Comprehensive Development across the Villages
Eng. Ali Moonesan, Head of Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization pointed to the pervasive employment initiative of Plan and Budget Organization and said, “Housing, tourism and handicrafts are three very important areas in this plan which has been considered for employment and job generation. A joint cooperation between Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization and Barakat Foundation in pervasive employment development area in villages may result in some good results.”
Pointing to construction of ecological accommodation as a way to generate jobs and incomes for the villagers through low investments, he said, “It also reduces migration from villages to cities, as we see that some citizens who have already migrated from villages to cities have again returned to their villages and have converted their ancestral homes into ecological accommodations. Ecological accommodations are categorized as small businesses which are sustainable as well.”
Today we see this wave in the country in which people who live in different areas are interested in keeping their historic houses and to do business in such houses.
“Historically, the villagers have and are involved with producing handicrafts and they have a good production level, the main issue in this regard is marketing and sales of handicrafts. However, since marketing is not costly in the handicrafts areas, a good sale can be predicted for the villagers through a wise marketing technique,” he added.
He also pointed to 280 million USD exports of handicrafts in the last year and added, “This value has been realized through official entries of the country and also as estimations indicate we had 250 million USD suitcase exports of handicrafts.”
Speaking about the sustainable development outlook of Hormoz Island, the first Vice-president said, “It is suggested that the comprehensive development outlook of Hormoz Island is prepared in order to find a better coordination and integration.” He also said that occurrence of events may help to attract more tourists to Hormoz Island. “Since we are weak in terms of introduction and advertisements, we need to define some calendar-based events for the Hormoz Island. Sadly, most countries do not know Iran and its nature and even some of them think that Iran is a hot and arid land like Saudi Arabia. Hence, you can attract more tourists through defining events for the Hormoz Island.
Pointing to this fact that tourism has become a new important subject in the world, he said, “Fortunately ecotourism has become very popular in Iran.”
Pointing to this fact that handicrafts markets of Hormoz Island need to be reinforced, Head of Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization said, “It will help local communities and reaching new incomes by the local people.”
Pouya Mahmoudian, administrator of handicrafts deputy of Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization said, “More than 75 percent of people who are active in the handicrafts areas are women. In Hormoz Island, women constitute a vulnerable class of the society who can exquisite handicrafts and we can take advantage of the capacity of these women.”
“In clothing area, we can play a key role in the market through brand building policies. For example, today we see that a great deal of great and expensive clothes is adorned with Khous-weaving of women of Hormoz Island,” he added.
Another speaker of this meeting was Jamshid Gravand, advisor of sustainable development initiative of Hormoz Island, who explained about details of this project which has been compiled based on tourism development.”
