THE ASSOCIATED SCHOOL PROJECT NETWORK

The Associated School Project Network (ASPNET) was launched worldwide in 1953. The primary goal is to promote education for international understanding, peace, co-operation and human rights as a means of expanding and deepening the scope of the international experience provided through the UNESCO Associated Schools Project. A major focus is facilitation of educational innovation in the areas of curriculum development, materials production, and teaching and learning strategies.

The Transatlantic Slave Route Educational Project is the flagship project of ASPNET. This project aims at developing new and innovative educational approaches and materials to enhance teaching about the causes, consequences and legalities of the Slave Trade and to reinforce positive values in relation to citizenship, human rights, democracy and freedom. Six schools in Jamaica, located in the parishes of Portland, St. Thomas and St, Mary, participated in this project.

17 -20 August 2005: A four day sub-regional ASPNET symposium was held at  the UWI, St Augustine campus and hosted by the UNESCO Associated Schools Project Network and UNESCO Clubs in collaboration with the Trinidad and Tobago National Commission for UNESCO. Participating in the symposium were teams from: Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Barbados, Haiti, Guyana, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and the Dominican Republic.

The symposium took place within the framework of the project “Up from Slavery: Struggle, Transformation, and Action.” and sought to engage participants in discussions about the struggle against slavery and its abolition and to identify modern forms of slavery. Gloria Bean, teacher at the Queen’s School and President of the Jamaica History Teachers Association, presented a paper entitled, “Stories of Slavery, Resistance in Jamaica”, while Kwest-Ann Samuels, a fifth form student at the Titchfield High School, Portland spoke on the subject, “The relevance of teaching the history of the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade to the education of Tuesday’s Caribbean youth”, which gained her first place in the public speaking competition.