News Releases

Eric Williams Memorial Collection Sponsors 2019 Regional 'School Bags' Essay Competition

For Release Upon Receipt - October 31, 2019

St. Augustine


 

The Eric Williams Memorial Collection Research Library, Archives & Museum (EWMC) in the Alma Jordan Library at The University of the West Indies (UWI), St. Augustine Campus is pleased to announce the opening of this year’s “Eric Williams ‘School Bags’ Essay Competition.” This year’s topic asks students to prepare a public address to Caribbean governments offering strategies as a region on how to effectively deal with the consequences of global warming.

Judges include: Dr. Rita Pemberton, retired Chair, UWI Department of History; Dr. Andrew O’Shaughnessy, Director, Center for Jefferson Studies, University of Virginia; and Dr. Dexnell Peters, Bennet Boskey Fellow in Atlantic Studies, Oxford University. Dr. Peters was the winner of the 2007 inaugural Essay Competition.

The Eric Williams Memorial Collection Research Library, Archives & Museum was inaugurated by former US Secretary of State Colin Powell in 1998, and named to UNESCO’s prestigious Memory of the World Register in 1999. Throughout his life, Dr. Eric Williams, noted scholar/historian and the first Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, gave special emphasis to learning. “To educate is to emancipate.” On August 30, 1962, the eve of his country’s Independence from Britain, he exhorted:

“You, the children, yours is the great responsibility to educate your parents, teach them to live together in harmony…To your tender and loving hands, the future of the Nation is entrusted. In your innocent hearts, the pride of the Nation is enshrined. On your scholastic development, the salvation of the Nation is dependent…you carry the future of [the Nation] in your school bags.”

The winning essay will be published in: Miami, Florida’s Caribbean Today newspaper; CARICOM’s newsletter; The Trinidad Express newspaper; and UWI’s Pelican magazine. A link to the latter will be publicized in Caribbean Airlines’ inflight magazine, Caribbean Beat, and a photograph and blurb of the winner will appear in the Journal of African American History.

The contest has been offered to all Lower and Upper Sixth Form (CAPE or equivalent) students in: Anguilla, Antigua, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, and Turks and Caicos – some 177 schools. It is being held through December 15, 2019. Winners will be announced on January 31, 2020.

For more information, please contact Erica Williams Connell, The Eric Williams Memorial Collection Email: ewmc@ewmc-tt.org  Tel: 305-905-9999 P.O. Box 561631, Miami, FL 33256-1631, USA. Fax: (305) 271-4160; Website: www.ericwilliamsmemorialcollection.org 

                                                                         End

 

Notes to Editor

 

Prizes

The first prize winner will receive a four-day trip for two to Trinidad and Tobago with airfare, hotel accommodations and per diem allowance; a tour of The Eric Williams Memorial Collection and University of the West Indies campus; a US $1000 educational voucher; courtesy calls on the Prime Minster of Trinidad and Tobago and the Speaker of the House of Representatives; a tour of Parliament; a set of Eric Williams’ books, a Digicel DL smart phone; an interview on UWI TV; radio and TV interviews in various Caribbean countries, depending on the winner’s residence; and a framed certificate. In the event of a Trinidad and Tobago winner, a trip to another Caribbean territory will be substituted, as well as appropriate tours.

Patrons

Patrons of the Eric Williams Memorial Collection’s ‘School Bags’ Essay Competition are: University of the West Indies; UWI TV, Banwari Experience; Caribbean Airlines; Caribbean Beat Magazine; Caribbean Development Bank; Caribbean Horizons Tours; Caribbean Today; CARICOM; Digicel Trinidad & Tobago, Ltd.; Hyatt Regency, Trinidad; Journal of African American History; LIAT (1974) Ltd.; One Caribbean Media, Ltd.; Trinidad and Tobago’s Office of the Prime Minister, Parliament and Speaker of the House of Representatives; True Blue Bay Boutique Resort and UNESCO.

 

About The UWI

For more than 70 years The University of the West Indies (The UWI) has provided service and leadership to the Caribbean region and wider world. The UWI evolved from a university college of London in Jamaica with 33 medical students in 1948 to an internationally respected, regional university with near 50,000 students across five campuses: Cave Hill in Barbados; Five Islands in Antigua and Barbuda; Mona in Jamaica, St. Augustine in Trinidad and Tobago; and an Open Campus. Times Higher Education has ranked The UWI among the top 1,258 universities in world for 2019, and the 40 best universities in its Latin America Rankings for 2018 and 2019. The UWI is the only Caribbean-based university to make the prestigious lists.

As part of its robust globalization agenda, The UWI has established partnering centres with universities in North America, Latin America, Asia, and Africa including the State University of New York (SUNY)-UWI Center for Leadership and Sustainable Development; the Canada-Caribbean Studies Institute with Brock University; the Strategic Alliance for Hemispheric Development with Universidad de los Andes (UNIANDES); The UWI-China Institute of Information Technology, the University of Lagos (UNILAG)-UWI Institute of African and Diaspora Studies and the Institute for Global African Affairs with the University of Johannesburg (UJ). The UWI offers over 800 certificate, diploma, undergraduate, and postgraduate degree options in Food & Agriculture, Engineering, Humanities & Education, Law, Medical Sciences, Science & Technology, Social Sciences and Sport. As the region’s premier research academy, The UWI’s foremost objective is driving the growth and development of the regional economy. For more, visit www.uwi.edu.

 (Please note that the proper name of the university is The University of the West Indies, inclusive of “The”)

 

Contact