The UWI’s Centre for Reparations Research Launches International Debate Competition

The Centre for Reparations Research (CRR) at The University of the West Indies (The UWI) has launched an International Reparation Debate Competition to engage secondary schools regionally and internationally in reparatory justice discussions. The competition begins officially on Friday, March 10 and runs until April 2025. The debates will be streamed live on the CRR’s YouTube channel.

Twenty-four schools from the Bahamas, Curaçao, Guyana, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and the United Kingdom are among the first participants in this competition. Engaging secondary-level students in structured debates will enhance their historical understanding and stimulate meaningful conversations within families, communities, schools, and the broader public discourse.

Can you apologise for a wrongful act by an ancestor? Should reparations be paid to governments? How do we engage youth on matters of reparatory justice? These and more are questions that the CRR is tackling as it strategically engages the next generation.

Most importantly, the debating competition will seek to achieve a critical facet of the CRR’s strategic plan to mainstream reparation from street to stage. With support from Caribbean governments and expanding allies in the Global North, this intervention is broad-based. It will use debate as a strategy for reparatory justice education and outreach.

As debates on reparatory justice for peoples of African descent sway from conservative to liberal in orientation, there is a need for strategic intervention. The international debate has thus far centred on economic aspects, with former colonisers such as Britain advancing anti-justice sentiments and ultimately resisting repair in the form of apologies or compensation.

The CRR is pleased to have partners and collaborators, including the CARICOM Reparation Commission, The Repair Campaign, Jamaica Association for Debating and Empowerment, The UWI Press, PJ Patterson Institute for Africa-Caribbean Advocacy, the Wilberforce Institute – UK, among others.