St Joseph’s Con­vent, Port-of-Spain, has emerged vic­to­ri­ous in the In­ter­na­tion­al Repa­ra­tions De­bate Com­pe­ti­tion, de­feat­ing Claren­don Col­lege of Ja­maica in the fi­nals held on Fri­day at the Cen­tre for Repa­ra­tions Re­search at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Mona Cam­pus. The Na­tion­al Com­mit­tee on Repa­ra­tions (NCR) ex­tend­ed its heart­felt con­grat­u­la­tions to the team for their ex­cep­tion­al achieve­ment.

A re­lease stat­ed that the com­pe­ti­tion start­ed on March 17 and fea­tured stu­dents from 24 schools across the re­gion en­gag­ing in live­ly de­bate on mat­ters of Repa­ra­tions for Na­tive Geno­cide and Chat­tel Slav­ery in the Caribbean.

The com­pe­ti­tion was or­gan­ised by the Cen­tre for Repa­ra­tions Re­search in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, UWI TV, The Re­pair Cam­paign, The PJ Pat­ter­son In­sti­tute For African-Caribbean Pub­lic Ad­vo­ca­cy, The Uni­ver­si­ty Of Hull And the Cari­com Repa­ra­tions Com­mis­sion, of which the Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Com­mit­tee on Repa­ra­tions is a part. Among the judges was the em­i­nent his­to­ri­an, Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus Ru­pert Lewis.

In ex­tend­ing his con­grat­u­la­tions to the team from St Joseph’s Con­vent, NCR Chair Dr Claudius Fer­gus not­ed that the com­pe­ti­tion is a crit­i­cal step in the in­clu­sion of young Caribbean voic­es in the grow­ing glob­al con­ver­sa­tion on repa­ra­tions and repara­to­ry jus­tice for chat­tel slav­ery and na­tive geno­cide.

“Their per­for­mance re­flects deep re­search, pas­sion, and a clear un­der­stand­ing of the his­tor­i­cal in­jus­tices faced by our re­gion, as well as the fu­ture we en­vi­sion—one ground­ed in eq­ui­ty, recog­ni­tion, and re­pair,” Fer­gus said.

“On be­half of the NCR, I cel­e­brate this proud mo­ment with the stu­dents, their teacher-coach­es, fam­i­lies, and the school com­mu­ni­ty. Their tri­umph is a bea­con for young lead­ers across the Caribbean who are com­mit­ted to jus­tice, truth, and trans­for­ma­tion.”