Garifuna

Community

Why This Community?

Who are the Garifuna?

The Garifuna (a.k.a Black Caribs) are of mixed African and indigenous Kalinago-Taino (Carib-Arawak) origin. Also Guyana.

They are the descendants of the African survivors of human cargo ships that were wrecked off the island of St Vincent around 1675. These West Africans, along with the steady stream of maroons escaping slavery on other Caribbean islands, found refuge and started families with the indigenous Kalinago (Carib) population. An Afro-indigenous culture developed that existed independently of the region’s colonial forced labour plantation system. They became known as the Black Caribs or Garifuna.

UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) through its Endangered Language Program, has declared the Garifuna language an endangered language in 2001.

“The Garifuna person is not individualistic. The traditional Garifuna person is a member of a group and he does not rely on himself as an individual for his own survival so there has been a strong sense of community.”

— E Roy Caytano | President of the National Garifuna Council 2012

Garifuna

Community

Why This Community?

Who are the Garifuna?

UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) through its Endangered Language Program, has declared the Garifuna language an endangered language in 2001.

Recipes making change.