Garifuna Council seeks support for ancestral homeland

By Aaron Humes: Belize’s National Garifuna Council (NGC) has joined the chorus of calls for support of the people of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, recently affected by the volcanic eruption of La Soufriere in the north last week.

It’s a little more personal for the NGC, as St. Vincent, or Yurumein in the Carib language, is the spiritual and ancestral home of all Garinagu and many still live there.

An NGC statement says, “The sheer enormity of the destruction to homes, lands, and crops is further intensified, due to the impact of the novel COVID-19 pandemic. NGC continues to offer prayers for the continued safety of our brothers and sisters…”

But they also want to send cash. To that end, kindly deposit your contributions to the Council’s Belize Bank Corporation (formerly Scotia Bank) account 1939304, to be forwarded to the NGC’s counterparts on the island.

In related news, Monday, April 12 was observed as Garifuna Survival Day, the unhappy day of the arrival of the Garinagu to Roatan, Honduras, after being expelled from St. Vincent and the nearby dependency of Baliceaux. Their arrival to Belize in 1823 is observed on November 19 as Garifuna Settlement Day despite having first arrived in 1802.

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