CFBC lecturer Cameron Gill named to UNESCO committee on routes of enslaved peoples

BASSETERRE, St Kitts. Dr Cameron St Pierre Gill, a senior lecturer at Clarence Fitzroy Bryant College, has been appointed to the International Scientific Committee of UNESCO's Routes of Enslaved Peoples programme, the St Kitts-Nevis National Commission for UNESCO has announced.

The appointment was made by the UNESCO Director-General and confirmed in a letter dated 5 November from Denise Pires de Carvalho, the organisation's assistant director-general for sciences.

The programme, whose full title is Routes of Enslaved Peoples: Resistance, Liberty, Heritage, studies the history and legacy of slavery. Committee members attend regular sessions, help draft scientific guidelines and make recommendations, in particular on UNESCO's network of places of history and memory connected to slavery and the slave trade.

Dr Gill was nominated by Nerys Dockery, secretary-general of the national commission and co-chair of the federation's own Routes of Enslaved Peoples committee. The commission said he met the membership criteria set out in the committee's statutes.

"This is a moment of immense national pride," Ms Dockery said.

She pointed to his record as manager of Brimstone Hill Fortress National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and his years of work with UNESCO at national level.

David Doyle, the federation's ambassador to UNESCO, said Dr Gill was updating the inventory of cultural heritage at four sites being prepared for the UNESCO Tentative List, the first step towards World Heritage nomination. Mr Doyle said the appointment would strengthen English-speaking Caribbean input into the programme.

The commission also thanked UNESCO's sciences sector and Dr Nonso Obikili, the programme specialist for the Routes of Enslaved Peoples initiative.