Kolkata: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation would replicate in various parts of the world a community participation model adopted by sex workers in Asia's biggest red light area at Sonagachi near Kolkata.

Announcing this in Kolkata today (Jan 26, 2004), Melinda Gates, wife of the Microsoft CEO who keenly pursues the working of the foundation worldwide, said the self-serving model of the sex workers epitomised by hundreds of Self Help Groups (SHGs) operating in the region, was 'really commendable'.

After visiting a colony of 17,000 migrant labourers and 1000 street-based sex workers in Cossipore and Sonagachi, Gates, whose foundation funds a $ 200 million AIDS (Acquired Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome) prevention project in India, said the Durbar Mahila Samanvay Committee (DMSC) undertaking the project could play an advisory role in disseminating the model elsewhere.

"After having reviewed the work done by the Sonagachi project, Melinda Gates has sought more information on the participatory approach which the foundation could replicate in its projects currently underway in high AIDS prevalence areas of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu," DMSC chief advisor Smarajit Jana told reporters.

The 1998 Sonagachi project funded by WHO (World Health Organisation) and later by DFID as well as the West Bengal State AIDS Society, has earned laurels with its successful model of SHGs where the sex workers voluntarily take up various community participation projects to tackle problems like AIDS, children's education and police atrocities.