Fifth And Sixth DE-CODE Dialogues Engage ‘DE-CODING HUMAN RIGHTS: Embracing Difference’

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DE-CODE Human Rights panellist, Elizabeth Solomon: Change Agent, UN peacebuilder, award-winning journalist and certified mediator.
Award-winning journalist and certified mediator, Elizabeth Solomon, has dedicated her life to being a Change Agent amassing over 20 years of experience in peacebuilding with service at the United Nations and in her homeland and the Caribbean as a member of Trinidad and Tobago’s Mediation Board and as the Executive Director of the Caribbean Centre for Human Rights.

The University of the West Indies’ (UWI’s) Cultural Studies Society (CSS) will host its fifth and sixth dialogues in the DE-CODE series with a focus on ‘DE-CODING HUMAN RIGHTS: Embracing Difference’. On Tuesday September 29, 2020, Session 5 will feature a discussion between Elizabeth Solomon, Gillian Moor and E. Wayne McDonald with moderation by Yvonne Webber. For the more intimate Session 6, on Tuesday October 6, 2020, participants will ventilate issues by engaging in small group discussions. These sessions will take place online via Zoom with streaming on Facebook LIVE.

DE-CODE Human Rights panellist, Gillian Moor: Singer and songwriter with an unmistakable voice and style.
Over the past two decades, singer and songwriter, Gillian Moor, has impacted the underground music scene in Trinidad and Tobago. With her unmistakable voice and style, Moor’s 2004 hard-hitting single, Big Snake, still resonates today as she addresses inequalities in Trinidad and Tobago’s policing and the effects of unjustly criminalising whole communities. Photo courtesy Gillian Moor.

Since the July 2020 launch of DE-CODE, the CSS has facilitated four online dialogues aimed at building knowledge about topical issues for the Caribbean and its diaspora with an audience from the Caribbean, the USA and Europe. The most recent sessions, which were held on August 25 and September 1, 2020, tackled ‘DE-CODING HUMAN RIGHTS: Our Right to Breathe’ with discussions between moderator, Tessa Alexander, and Mariateresa Garrido, Assistant Professor, Department of International Law, University for Peace, Leigh-Ann Worrell, black Caribbean feminist, and Simeon Moodoo, playwright, director, actor and educator. These sessions were inspired by the July 21, 2020 Parliamentary speech of Barbados’s Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Economic Affairs and Investment, the Honourable Mia Mottley Q.C., M.P., which addressed discrimination and the Remote Employment Bill 2020.

DE-CODE Human Rights panellist, E. Wayne McDonald: Jamaican theatre director, arts administrator, performer and speaker.
Jamaican theatre director, arts administrator, performer, and speaker, E. Wayne McDonald, is currently reading for a postgraduate degree in Cultural Studies at the UWI, St. Augustine as he celebrates and interrogates Caribbean theatre evolution, cultural identities, nation languages, and diasporic memory in his work. Photo courtesy E. Wayne McDonald.

DE-CODE was conceptualised to nurture awareness, empathy, compassion and transformation surrounding issues including identity, racism, classism, colourism, structural inequality, representation, citizenship and social justice. To support this objective, the format of the online dialogues has been designed to facilitate expression, connection with our realities and the much-needed process towards individual and collective healing.

DE-CODE Human Rights moderator, Yvonne Webber: Jamaican mother, teacher and theatre practitioner based in Australia.
As a mother, teacher and theatre practitioner, Yvonne Webber, practises “service above self” with her passion for creating spaces for people to develop their communities. Photo courtesy Yvonne Webber.

The CSS is an organisation at the UWI, St Augustine, led by students of the Cultural Studies programme. The purpose of the organisation is to promote discussion, debate and awareness of the various issues that underscore our society, culture and how we see ourselves and others as Caribbean people. To be a part of the fifth and sixth DE-CODE sessions, please register in advance via http://bit.ly/DECODESession5Reg and join the FB event page at http://bit.ly/DECODESession5FBEvent. For more information, connect with the CSS via IG and FB @culturalstudiessociety or email uwiculturalstudies.society@gmail.com.

WHAT: DE-CODE Sessions 5 & 6 – DE-CODING HUMAN RIGHTS: Embracing Difference

WHO: Cultural Studies Society at UWI, St. Augustine

WHEN: Tuesday September 29, 2020 and Tuesday October 6, 2020 at 6:30 p.m. AST

WHERE: Zoom and streaming via FB LIVE at http://bit.ly/DECODESession5FBEvent

REGISTRATION: Register in advance at http://bit.ly/DECODESession5Reg