Public Invited to Attend the Launch of the University of Guyana’s International Centre for Migration and Diaspora Studies and to Witness Apology from Gladstone Heirs

Aug 20, 2023 News

Kaieteur News – The University of Guyana launches its International Centre for Migration and Diaspora Studies in collaboration with the National Reparations Committee and Heirs of Slavery, on Friday, August 25, 2023, in the George Walcott Lecture Theatre (GWLT) of the Turkeyen Campus, in Georgetown, Guyana, from 8:30 hrs. to 11:00 hrs.

The Diaspora and Migration Centre is set up to pursue five (5) specific areas of research interest including, but not limited to Diaspora and Migration in and around Academia, Youth, Technology and Vulnerable Communities, Indigeneity, Indentureship and Slavery as specific and integral aspects of dispersion.

Legacies and Future Invitation

The research track for Slavery and indentureship is the reason why it was deemed appropriate to launch the Diaspora and Migration Centre (MiDias) in this historically auspicious month in regard to the emancipation of enslaved peoples as well as the 200th anniversary of the 1823 Slave Revolution in Demerara.

The University has been collaborating for several years with several Universities and the Guyana Reparations Committee on specific aspects of the impacts of the plantations’ enterprise of Slavery and indentureship as well as indigeneity on native populations, including relations being experienced today.

As such UG and the Guyana Reparations Committee invited members of the Gladstone family, part of an heir of slavery grouping to participate in the event since Quamina and his son John, who led the 1823 Rebellions were enslaved on Gladstone Plantations. The University itself is founded on Plantation Lands upon which part of the revolutions were enacted. The Gladstone family, which includes several historians, has today confirmed that they will in fact offer an apology given the role their ancestors would have played here.

Given this development, The University and Reparations Committee have specially invited and continue to invite several elders, the Guyana Reparations Committee and other groups, Students and senior potentates to witness and receive the formal apology at the short formal ceremony which begins at 9:00 hrs. at the GWLT on Friday, August 25, 2023.

After the formal ceremony, the moment will be marked by an inter-generational dialogue between University of Guyana students and youthful members of the Gladstone family; a linking of the University of Guyana Library with digital archives of the Council of World Missions and an exhibition of scholarly work throughout the day on the subject matter.

The public is invited to attend either virtually or in person. For Virtual registration, please use the following link:

https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Ob0sefwYTY-YVypQZPTePA#/registration

The Guyana Reparations Committee also has a series of events and conversations to mark this occasion, including a church service.

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George Walcott Lecture Theatre (GWLT), Gladstone Heirs, International Centre for Migration and Diaspora Studies, slavery, University of Guyana

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