Conversations: Ottawa and the Anglophone Caribbean: the afterlife of Slavery in Education, Heritage and Immigration.
The afterlife of Slavery in Education, Heritage and Immigration.
Feb 16, 2023 — All day
For Black History Month, graduate students and Teacher Candidates of Colour collective joined professor Lerona Dana Lewis to organize a series of events to discuss anti-Black racism in education and legacies of colonization.
Description
The guests will discuss the association between Slavery and Colonization in the Caribbean and Canada, specifically in Ottawa highlighting the commonalties of the challenge in addressing heritage sites and education. More broadly they will address the following question: How are the policies of countries like Canada whose residents owned Slave Plantations in the Caribbean continuing to impact the Caribbean development?
Speakers:
Arley N Salimbi Gill
Lawyer and chairman of the Grenada National Reparations Committee
Arley N. Salimbi Gillis an Attorney-at-Law, cultural critic, social and political commentator. He was a former Chairman of UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention, Chairman of Spicemass Cooperation responsible for Grenada's Carnival.
He is a former Minister of Culture in Grenada and is currently the chair of the Grenada National Reparations Commission and Member of the CARICOM Reparations Commission.
Attorney Gill is a graduate of the University of the West Indies (UWI) and The Hugh Wooding Law School. He holds a Master of Law degree in International Maritime Law from the Institute of International Maritime Law in Malta.
Lerona Dana Lewis
Assistant Professor
Professor Lerona Dana Lewis completed her doctoral studies in the Faculty of Education and a postdoctoral fellowship in the Faculty of Medicine at McGill University, exploring the culture of faculty development in medical education. Her primary areas of expertise are school, family, and community relations, and the social practices that shape Black children's schooling experiences in K -12 contexts.
June Girvan
President of Black History Ottawa
June Girvan is well recognized for her community building work.
In 2023, the theme of her community work is Legacies Worth Preserving, Celebrating and Creating. The focus of the work is, commemorate the 5th anniversary of Ottawa’s March 21, 2018 adoption of The United Nations Decade for People of African Descent: Development. Recognition. Justice; led by UNESCO; the 230th anniversary of Upper Canada’s July 9, 1793 Bill to abolish slavery in Upper Canada; and the 190th anniversary of the August 28,1833 Act to 1833 Bill to abolish slavery in the British Empire, including Canada.
After serving in the public education system, and retiring from service as a Supervisory Officer with the Ontario Ministry of Education and Training, June Girvan established the J’Nikira Dinqinesh Education Centre – Every Child is Sacred to contribute her world view on reconciliation and the sacredness of the child, with the theme, ‘peace, unity, reconciliation and hope in family, community, the world’ (‘peace, u r hope …”). J’Nikira, coined from her children’s names, bears the motto of Jamaica, “out of many, one”. Dinqinesh, in Amharic means “Thou are wonderful; splendid”.
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