The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (The UWI) is call­ing on all cit­i­zens to “Play your part in heal­ing the na­tion and mov­ing for­ward in Uni­ty…” as it hosts a vir­tu­al sym­po­sium on Race Re­la­tions, to­day.

The vir­tu­al sym­po­sium ti­tled “A Time for Heal­ing: Un­der­stand­ing and Rec­on­cil­ing Race Re­la­tions in Trinidad and To­ba­go”, is open to the pub­lic and is free of charge. 

It is sched­uled for 1 pm, to­day, Sun­day 30 Au­gust 2020, and can be ac­cessed through the UWI St Au­gus­tine Face­book page https://www.face­book.com/UWISTA/.

The vir­tu­al sym­po­sium is a col­lab­o­rate ef­fort be­tween the UWI’s Fac­ul­ty of Law St. Au­gus­tine Cam­pus and the Catholic Com­mis­sion for So­cial Jus­tice (CC­SJ).

An of­fi­cial state­ment is­sued by the UWI ex­plains the ra­tio­nale be­hind to­day’s vir­tu­al sym­po­sium:

“In re­cent times, we have wit­nessed a dis­play of   race hos­til­i­ties that en­veloped Trinidad and To­ba­go dur­ing the elec­tion pe­ri­od and is con­tin­u­ing. It is cer­tain that these in­ci­dences of racist con­duct have deep un­der­pin­nings in our di­verse so­ci­ety,” the state­ment says.

The UWI warns: “If not man­aged prop­er­ly, racial ten­sions could de­te­ri­o­rate and have far-reach­ing, dam­ag­ing im­pacts on our plu­ral­is­tic so­ci­ety.”

It adds: “A na­tion­al con­ver­sa­tion, fo­cus­ing on un­der­stand­ing and heal­ing, is sore­ly need­ed and this should be host­ed in an em­pa­thet­ic, bal­anced and ob­jec­tive en­vi­ron­ment.”

The UWI says this Na­tion­al Sym­po­sium will bring to­geth­er schol­ars and thought lead­ers on the sub­ject of race, to gen­er­ate dis­cus­sion in a safe space.

“Im­por­tant­ly, a safe space to ac­tive­ly in­volve the pub­lic has al­so been cre­at­ed,” the UWI says. “This is through a spe­cial web-link to har­ness con­tri­bu­tions from the pub­lic, both be­fore and dur­ing the event. Per­sons who have per­son­al­ly ex­pe­ri­enced racism or dis­crim­i­na­tion are asked to send their tes­ti­mo­ni­als us­ing this web-link, https://sta.uwi.edu/law/news­fea­tures/Rac­eRe­la­tions2020.php.”

Sym­po­sium pan­elists in­clude UWI Pro­fes­sor Emeri­ta Rho­da Red­dock, UN CEDAW Com­mit­tee; Jus­tice Don­na Prow­ell-Raphael, Judge Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Tri­bunal; Kwasi Mutema , Chair, NJAC; the UWI’s Dr. Bish­nu Ra­goonath, Coun­cil for Re­spon­si­ble Po­lit­i­cal Be­hav­iour; Mr. David Ab­dul­lah, ac­tivist; Dr. Ray­mond Ram­char­i­tar, writer and cul­tur­al his­to­ri­an; Dr. Sheila Ram­per­sad;  Dr. Kadi­ja Khan, psy­chol­o­gist; and Prof. Rose-Marie Belle An­toine, Dean, Law and for­mer Rap­por­teur, Per­sons of African De­scent and Against Dis­crim­i­na­tion, OAS.

The event will be mod­er­at­ed by CC­SJ Chair, Ms. Leela Ramdeen.

Var­i­ous faith com­mu­ni­ties will par­tic­i­pate through prayer.