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UNESCO promotes dialogue on the contributions of the Afro-descendant community to education in the region
The webinar, titled “Dialogue on the Futures of Education within the Framework of the 30th Anniversary of UNESCO’s ‘Slave Route’ Programme,” was held on 16th August and brought together international experts to revalue and highlight the cultural and educational heritage of Afro-descendants.
The seminar was organised by the UNESCO Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean, and the UNESCO Office in Havana, in collaboration with UNESCO San José and UNESCO Headquarters in Paris.
During the event, UNESCO senior education specialist Renato Opertti emphasised the need to implement an educational framework that incorporates the General History of Africa (GHA) in the region, 500 years after the start of the transatlantic slave trade. He noted that it is crucial to “rethink education and rewrite the history of the African continent.”
The event featured three discussion panels, which explored topics such as epistemic justice, new Afro-descendant narratives, and the challenges of decolonising education. In the first panel, Rosa Campoalegre, rector of the State University of the African Diaspora in Cuba, and Anny Ocoró, a researcher at the National University of Tres de Febrero (UNTREF) and a postdoctoral fellow at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) in Argentina, reflected on the contributions of Afro-Latin American and Caribbean thought to education. Campoalegre underscored the importance of recognising and reclaiming these contributions as a means of advancing towards greater social justice.
The second panel addressed new Afro-Latin American and Afro-Caribbean narratives, with participants including Camila Valdés, coordinator of the UNESCO Chair at Casa de las Américas in Cuba; Kelly Perneth, historian and Programme Specialist for the Corporation of Associations of Cotopaxi and Tungurahua (CACTU), in Ecuador; and Isabel Araya, representing the Aluna Tambó Cultural Association in Chile. This discussion highlighted the crucial role these narratives play in constructing a more inclusive and diverse regional identity.
The seminar concluded with a panel dedicated to the futures of education and the challenges posed by decolonising the education system. Lenin Romero, director of the Venezuelan Observatory of Educational Quality; Jiovanni Samanamud, director of the Plurinational Observatory of Educational Quality in Bolivia; and Silvia Navarro, director of the Central Institute of Pedagogical Sciences at the Ministry of Education in Cuba, discussed the importance of creating an education system that not only teaches history but also promotes critical thinking capable of challenging narratives that negatively impact the Afro-descendant community.
This event served as a precursor to the "International Conference on New Narratives: Memory, Resistance, and Reclamation," which was held in Cuba from 21st to 23rd August 2024, in honour of the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition, and the 30th anniversary of the "Slave Route: Resistance, Liberty, and Heritage" programme. This conference provided a key space for continuing to explore and strengthen the educational and cultural legacy of Afro-descendant communities in the region.
“In this event, we highlight the need to decolonise education, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean, with the aim of making Afro-descendant communities visible, as they have been marginalised and their contributions have been ignored, so that we can build an education system and a world where justice and equality prevail,” stated Esther Kuisch Laroche, Director of the UNESCO Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean.
UNESCO Programme “The Slave Route: Resistance, Liberty, and Heritage”
For three decades, the “Slave Route: Resistance, Liberty, and Heritage” programme has contributed to the production of innovative knowledge, the development of high-level scientific networks, and the support of commemoration initiatives on slavery, its abolition, and the resistance it generated, on an international scale.
Its aim is to contribute to “deracialising” the world’s view and “decolonising” the world’s imagination by deconstructing the race-based narratives that justified these systems of exploitation, promoting the contributions of Afro-descendants to the overall progress of humanity, and questioning the social, cultural, and economic inequalities derived from slavery.
