Port of Spain, Trinidad – The Eric Williams Memorial Collection Research Library, Archives & Museum (EWMC) at The University of the West Indies (UWI), Trinidad and Tobago, announces this year’s “Eric Williams ‘School Bags’ Essay Competition.”
Since 2012 marks the 50th anniversary of the Independence of both Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica, Caribbean students in 17 of the former and current British-colonized territories are being asked to assess its successes and failures and what these might augur for the future.
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,” he famously said, and 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 Trinidad and Tobago in your school bags.”
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. It is being held from September 2012 through January 31, 2013. Winners will be announced on April 30, 2013.
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 President of Trinidad and Tobago and the Speaker of the House of Representatives; a tour of Parliament; a set of Eric Williams’ books; and a framed certificate. In the event of a Trinidad and Tobago winner, a trip to another Caribbean territory will be substituted.
The winning essay will also be published in CARICOM’s Newsletter, the Miami Herald Newspaper’s online edition and UWI’s Pelican magazine.
Patrons of the Eric Williams Memorial Collection’s ‘School Bags’ Essay Competition are: Banwari Experience; Caribbean Development Bank; CARICOM; Digicel Trinidad & Tobago, Ltd.; Journal of African American History; LIAT (1974) Ltd.; Majority Press; Markus Wiener Publishers; Miami-Dade County Public Schools; Miami Herald newspaper; Official Connection Books; Scrip-J Printers; Trinidad Express newspaper; Trinidad Hilton; UNESCO offices in: Guyana, Jamaica, St. Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago; University of the West Indies; Yorke Structures, Ltd.
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.
For more information, please contact Erica Williams Connell, The Eric Williams Memorial Collection P.O. Box 561631, Miami, FL 33256-1631, USA. Fax: (305) 271-4160;
