Parkinson Memorial celebrates African Awareness Day

THE students of the Parkinson Memorial School were treated to an exciting day filled with activities as they celebrated their annual African Awareness Day.

Speaking during the opening of the celebrations, which took place in the school’s hall, Principal Ian Holder expressed that it was his hope that at the end of the day, students would be able to have a better understanding of where they came from and have a deeper appreciation for their heritage. The day’s theme was “Tracing our Culture: From Africa to Present” and the day’s activities were planned in such a way for the students to be able to understand the African culture.

The Head of Department of General Studies at Parkinson Memorial, Reverend Dr. Stephen Lorde, told The Barbados Advocate that yesterday’s annual African Awareness programme was expected to be very educational for the youth.

He revealed that they also had Adrian Green present to deliver the featured address titled, “Tracing our Culture from Africa to Present”. For the first and second formers, he noted that they would be exposed to and entertained by the Shaggy Bear, Green Monkey and Mother Sally, as well as other popular Barbadian genres of music.

Based on history books that he would have read, the principal concluded that history indicated that the African people were responsible for the development of many of the highly developed nations that we see today.

“History normally takes a focus on slavery, even though we have gone through the ravages of slavery; that’s not what we want to focus on today. It is what we as black people have achieved, even though we suffered all the problems associated with slavery. We have still achieved greatness under those conditions,” he said.

Holder expressed that the black race could be considered as the greatest race on the planet and believed that the children needed to be exposed to the greatness and all the great achievements of black people. He added that he believed that tracing the history of the ancestors was important for the advancement of the people.