A KEY Black British reparations activist is backing the United Kingdom’s first Reparations Conference, which will take place this weekend.
The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Afrikan Reparations (APPG-AR) will be bringing together parliamentarians, campaigners, communities and other stakeholders to examine issues of African reparations, at a historic inaugural meeting.
For the first time, international and local reparations representatives from Africa, the Caribbean, the US, and the UK, will meet in London and join forces to collectively formulate a reparations strategy.
One of the key speakers at the conference, is renowned reparations activist Sis Esther Stanford-Xosei.
She described the highly-anticipated event as “significant.”
Speaking to The Voice, she said: “This is the first UK international conference that we’ve had, that brings together longstanding reparations activists, who are part of the international social movement for African reparations.”
Ms Stanford-Xosei added the event will also see conversations about reparations not only amongst campaigners but “with elected officials, parliamentarians as well as other members of civil society on such a large scale” which has not happened in Britain for decades.
“It is a unique time and place not only in history but also in terms of the global politics of reparations and the rising call and recognition of the struggle for reparations that we are having this conference,” she said.
Ms Stanford-Xosei stated that even though this weekend’s conference will be held in London, it is an “international conference that is bringing together a wide cross-section of reparationists from across generations, and from around the world.”
The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Afrikan Reparations (APPG-AR) was established two years ago.
Ms Stanford-Xosei was involved in lobbying Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy to establish the APPG-AR.
The reparations campaigner is the executive director of the Maangamizi Educational Trust, which shares the running of the secretariat for the APPG-AR.
Ms Stanford-Xosei is encouraging the Black community to attend the conference.
She said: “The UK has always been home of a Pan-African approach and building on the work of the late Bernie Grant MP and many others that were co-founders of the African Reparations Movement (ARM) UK in 1993.
She continued: “This conference will be bringing together some of those original members of ARM UK, who have continued to organise in communities.”
Ms Stanford-Xosei also said there will be allies at the conference and a wide range of participants, which should spark important ideas, dialogue and discussions.
She added: “There will be representatives from the movement in Africa, in the Americas, in the Caribbean, in the rest of Europe, even Asia, Oceania and the pacific.
“This will be an opportunity to bring us together in a way that is not happening.
“There will be a meeting of minds and there will be a battle of ideas.”
The UK Reparations Conference 2023, takes place Saturday 21st October and Sunday 22nd October, between 10am-5pm at Friends Meeting House, Euston, NW1 2BJ.
The conference is FREE to attend, for tickets, click here: https://www.appg-ar.org/uk-reparations-conference-2023
