Chatsworth's Bangladesh market on web

Durban business partners Yogan Naidoo and Kerusha Nurasiaha, with the help of media studies graduate Nershini Ramiah, have created the website www.bangladeshmarket.co.za to put the vibrant Westcliff market on the local and international map.

The website, which was officially launched Saturday, 18 April 2009, provides the public with useful information. This includes a gallery of pictures, a page profiling vendors, recipes containing ingredients found at the market as well as directions from the city centre and airport.

The market was established in the early '80s following a demand for cheap, fresh produce by oppressed Indians during the apartheid era.

It has now evolved into a melting pot of Indian and African culture, where an assortment of goods from vegetables, fish, poultry, household items and spices can be found. Nurasiaha, 22, said the market's “amazing atmosphere” inspired them to create the website.

“There is nowhere else in Durban that can provide this authentic vibe. The traders are unique, not commercialised, and you leave the market with a sense of nostalgia.”

Her partner, 22-year-old Ramiah, said she was pleasantly surprised by what she found during her first visit to the market, which she described as a “uniquely KwaZulu-Natal experience”.

Both women said one of their main goals was to highlight the role traders played in society.

“Traders are the centre point of the entire project and, because of this, we don't want them to get left behind in today's fast moving world.

“We want to take them with us,” said Nurasiaha. She believes the first step is to make vendors computer literate.

“If they can get computer training, they will be able to edit and blog and eventually become online traders.”

Ramiah said: “We would like to create an online market culture, something everybody can have a little piece of. This project opens so many doors, not just for Durban, but for South Africa too.”

Source: Sunday Times

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