Berbice Rebellion, Buxton Spice & Reparations Via Zoom

Sunday, 25th October 2020 (2pm – 4pm GMT / 10am – 11am GYT)

This Month’s Speakers

Nigel Westmaas, Oonya Kempadoo & Eric Phillips

Zoom Joining details: Enter the following URL into your computer browser: https://zoom.us/j/5786095205 This should take you directly to the meeting. If you are put into the waiting room then the Host will let you into the meeting. Alternatively, Select: “Join A Meeting” Meeting/Personal ID: 578-609-5205 Connect with computer audio when prompted and adjust your computer speaker. Please MUTE your mic when joining and the Host will advise when to unmute your mic.

SPEAKERS’ BIOS

Nigel Westmaas - The latest research and findings on the Berbice Revolt of 1763. Researcher and activist, Nigel Westmaas, is Associate Professor in the Department of Africana Studies at Hamilton College, New York. His research interests include social movements in Guyana and the Caribbean, archival research and projects, and the history of the newspaper press in Guyana. He has published articles in journals and newspapers including “Resisting Orthodoxy: Notes on the Origins and Ideology of the Working People’s Alliance” in Small Axe journal. He is co-editor with David Granger of a booklet on Guyanese Periodicals: 1796-1996. His research on Marcus Garvey in British Guiana for the University of California UNIA Papers project was published in 2011. Westmaas also published a chapter titled "An Organic Activist: Eusi Kwayana, Guyana and global Pan-Africanism" in the text Black Power in the Caribbean (University Press of Florida, 2014). Oonya Kempadoo - Readings from Buxton Spice (1998) with presentation on its shaping. Oonya Kempadoo, a British, Guyanese, Grenadian citizen, is currently a resident of Canada. She is the author of three novels and is critically acclaimed on both sides of the Atlantic. Her semi-autobiographical first novel was long-listed for the Orange Prize and translated into six languages. Her second won a Casa De Las Americas prize and she was named a “Great Talent for the 21st Century” by Orange Prize judges. Her third, All Decent Animals, (FSG, USA 2013), was on Oprah Winfrey’s Summer Reads. Oonya is a Fulbright Scholar alumni and co-founder of the Grenada Community Library. She facilitated and edited the first children’s chocolate book, written by children of colour in a cocoa-growing country that won ‘Best in the World’. She is currently developing a speculative fiction, eco-social project and is a national juror (USA & Canada) for Scholastic Arts & Writing Awards 2019-2020. Eric Phillips - The African Holocaust: The Business of Reparations is Business. Eric Phillips is the Chairperson of the Guyana Reparations Committee and Vice Chair of the CARICOM Reparations Commission. He is an Executive Director of the African Cultural & Development Association (ACDA) and was the first President of the African Business Roundtable (ABR) in Guyana. Amongst many other achievements, he assisted in the founding of 12 Youth and Community Groups and is Director of COLLACO, a school for children aged 2 to 10. He was the Co-Founder of the REFORM group in Guyana and co-Author of the Guyana 21 and Guyana 2030 Plans, both blue prints for Guyana’s National Development. He is the recipient of the Golden Arrow of Achievement for Youth Development, Entrepreneurship and Community Development. He has worked professionally in various capacities (Chairman of the Board, CEO, MD, VP, COO, Programme Director and Engineer) for seven different multinational companies including AT&T Africa & the Middle East.