The Garifuna Heritage Foundation (TGHF) in collaboration with the University of the West Indies Global Campus (UWIGC), presents the 11th International Garifuna Conference from March 11th -13th, 2024 held under the theme “Promoting Reparatory Justice: Towards the Development and Implementation of a 2030 Indigenous People’s Development Plan”. This IGC 2024 Conference will be conducted in HYBRID Modality ( Face to Face and Virtually) and will be held at the University of the West Indies Global Campus Conference Room.
The Opening ceremony for the Conference takes place on Monday 11th March 2024 commencing at 12.p.m. The Keynote Address will be delivered by Professor Jovan Scott Lewis an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Geography at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Scammer’s Yard: The Crime of Black Repair in Jamaica (University of Minnesota Press, 2020) and Violent Utopia: Dispossession and Black Restoration in Tulsa (Duke University Press).
Professor Lewis studied Black people’s lived experience of racial capitalism and underdevelopment and advance radical and productive reparative frameworks. Through analyses of injury, violence, repair, and community, his work has been centrally concerned with the question of reparations as a means of understanding the historical constitution but also the future of Blackness as a lived and political project. He is currently working on his third book project that examines Black relations beyond injury.
From 2021 to 2023, he was appointed by California Governor Gavin Newsom to the State’s Reparations Task Force, the first state-level reparations commission in the country. He was responsible for framing the community of eligibility and overseeing the development of compensation recommendations.
On Tuesday, March 12th the Keynote Address will be delivered by Hon. Dr. Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister St. Vincent and the Grenadines on the Topic: “ Balliceaux: Representation of Reparatory Justice for Indigenous people in the Caribbean ”.
As part of the day’s session, there will be a panel of speakers presenting on the topic “The significance of Balliceaux to Garinagu in the Diaspora”. These panelists will describe the situation of Garifuna Communities in various countries including Belize, Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua.
There will also be presentations by other speakers on the topic of Balliceaux. These speakers include Mrs. Joan Hoyte, Vincentian Attorney–at–Law, currently employed at the US Congress; Ms. Lucia Ellis, Belizean Researcher and Director of the NUMASA Wellness Institute; Prof. Ana Filipa Vrdoljak , Professor of Law, Faculty of Law and UNESCO Chair of International Law and Cultural Heritage at the University of Technology Sydney. Other presentations will also be delivered by Ms. Louise Mitchell, Attorney–at–Law and Executive Director of the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Environment Fund; as well as Dr. Esther Nunez, Professor – Medgar Evers College, New York. Professor Nunez will speak on the theme “Retracing the Footprints of my Ancestors through Pilgrimage in Search of Reconciliation And Healing”.
Wednesday, March 13th the final day of the Conference, will focus on the theme of Reparations. The Keynote Address will be delivered by Professor Christian Callejas Escoto – Attorney–at–Law, Costa Rica, Professor of Law, University of San Jose, Costa Rica and University of San Fransisco California Professor Christian Callejas Escoto is a prominent human rights attorney who has litigated cases before the International Court of Justice in relation to the fight for land rights of the Garifuna people in Honduras. He will speak on the topic on “ The use of Systems of International Law for the Promotion of Ancestral Rights of Garifuna People”. This will be followed by Dr. Lennox Honychurch – History Lecturer, Researcher and former Resident Tutor, UWI Open Campus. Dr. Lennox Honychurch will address the issue of the rights of indigenous people in Dominica.
Dr. Garrey Dennie, Associate Professor, History, St. Mary’s College of Maryland, USA and Dr. Adrian Fraser, Historian, will both speak on topics relevant to the historical basis for Reparatory Justice for the Garifuna.
The final presentation will be delivered by Andony Perez Castill and Mick Castillo who are representatives from Garifuna communities in Honduras and Belize respectively. The conference will end with a closing ceremony
Registration is Free and commences at 8:00 am. We take this opportunity to invite the Media and the General Public to be present at these events.
