The University of the West Indies Open Campus in collaboration with “the Friends of Oscar Allen” will host an inaugural “Oscar Allen Memorial Emancipation Lecture” next Tuesday, Aug. 21.
The event will be held at Frenches House in Kingstown at 7 p.m.
Reverend Patrick Perrin, a Methodist Minister serving the United Methodist Church in the United States, will deliver the lecture on the theme “Oscar Allen: The Man, His Work and His Influence”.
Perrin is a native of Jamaica and is an elder in the New York Conference of the United Methodist Church and the Pastor of the St. John’s UMC of Elmont, in Valley Stream, New York.
He is a graduate of University of the West Indies and the United Theological College of the West Indies.
He was Methodist Chaplain to the UWI – St. Augustine Campus, and Chaplain Tutor at the Excelsior Education Centre in Kingston, Jamaica. He has pastored churches in Trinidad, Jamaica, and since the 80’s in Brooklyn, New York.
The lecture honours the legacy of Oscar Allen for his contribution to the socio-political and religious life in St. Vincent and the Grenadines and the region.
It forms part of the Open Campus’ quest to rebrand its lectures in recognition of the outstanding contribution made by Vincentians at home and abroad.
The “Friends of Oscar Allen” and the Open Campus are inviting the public to the lecture.
Allen, 75, one of St. Vincent and the Grenadines’ most humble but persistent advocates for social justice, died July 28, 2017.
I must certainly attend this lecture and it should be noted by all patriotic vincentains at home and abroad to be curious, as to when are we going to name some more Vincentians who have made noteworthy contributions whether past or present; as national heroes, its time enough for parliament to select some more national heroes in SVG. One should take Jamaica as a case in point, maybe half of its national heroes have lived in the last century, also to note Antigua has recently name sir Vivian Richards as a national hero and he is still living. All respect to and not taking anything away from Joseph Chatoyer, but he was alive over 200 years ago and since that time, hasn’t any other Vincentian done anything of nobility to be deserving of such an Honour to be called a national hero?
Normally a national here is bestowed on a person posthumously.