TST Project Report Form

School Name: IES “Luis Seoane” (Pontevedra-Spain)/ IPVCE “Che Guevara”

(Cuba)/ Nusrat Secondary Senior School (Gambia)

Title of the project: “Learning from the past, understanding the present,
building the future together”

Project responsible: Luisa Márquez Rodríguez/ Daniel Bulgado

Benavides/Sainey Jallow

E.mail: lmarquez@edu.xunta.es

Date of the project: from January 15th to May 15th of 2011

Number of participants: 90 students

Age of participants: from 15 to 18 years old

Subtopics covered:
• The knowledge transmitted by slaves.
• The role of women during the years of slavery.
• The impact of slavery in the African territories.
• The places of memory in Cuba, Gambia and Spain.
• The role played by the Spanish Crown.
• Testimonies of African descent.
• The traces of slavery in modern societies: positive and negative.
• Modern forms of slavery: trafficking of women, children and migrant passage.

Short description of the project:

The project aims to bring the realities of the transatlantic slave trade to the high
school students, creating an active space of collaboration among schools
located in different geographical areas which will allow complete the knowledge
of TST from different perspectives: active and passive players, benefits and
detriments,…
The research will be carried out in international and multidisciplinary teams.
The project promotes a set of values shared by the UNESCO Associated
Schools: defending human rights, equality, multiculturalism, international
cooperation, mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and dialogue between
people and cultures, and between past and present.

Main objectives:

• Duty to defend the historical memory.

• To analize its impact in shaping the Atlantic world and the resulting
• cultural interactions.
• Increasing knowledge about TST as an human tragedy and the racism
• that resulted from it.
• Highlighting the role of women in the TST: the economic value and their
 • role in transmitting knowledge from their communities: agriculture,
• natural medicine, cosmology,… as well as their role in the fight for
• freedom.
• To ensure a systematic exchange of projects, research and educational
• approaches.
• To improve training of teachers in teaching of TST promoting
• international and interdisciplinary teams.
• To promote awareness of environmental and cultural problems among
• different regions of the world that provide for the exchange.
• To promote the use of new communication and information technologies
• that puts us on the road to access the new knowledge society.
• To design a map and a tourism program of memory.

Concrete activities and project phases:

En primer lugar debemos aclarar que no se pudieron desarrollar todos los

tópicos propuestos por falta de tiempo pero, nos ha animado a seguir
trabajando sobre los diferentes aspectos más allá del 15 de mayo.

In the IES “LUIS SEOANE” ( Pontevedra-Spain)

Advanced Research

The teams presented the results about different topics: triangular trade,
transport conditions, the life of the slaves, the struggle for emancipation,
main figures in the history of slavery, “black codes”

Legal (policy) documents against slavery were studied and we spread the
resolution on the International Year of African descent.

We advanced in the knowledge about the role placed by the Spanish Crown
in the path of the slaves black seats, the House of Seville, the theoretical
debates to justify the enslavement of Africans.

We were fortunate to receive a gift (from the Triana family of Sagua la
Grande-Cuba) three jewels literature on the “ingenios” in Cuba, so we could
learn about the slave system in them and the role of women as workers and
as breeding slaves. This allowed us to advance research on “women and
girls” in the TST.

Progress in the analysis of modern forms of slavery and most especially in
“trafficking in women and girls for sexual exploitation, both globally, in
Europe as in Spain: Operation Carioca, the brothel scandal in Catalonia, the
mafias in Spain, … The finding will be shared also with the SB “Sá de
Bandeira” of Santarém (Portugal).

We made an “exhibition” on Trafficking, another on the role of women in it.

We opened the blog: http://tstcubagambiaspain2011.blogspot.com

Outstanding activities

• We are preparing a “Festival of African Music” by the end of June in

which they pledged their cooperation: the CMU “Manuel Quiroga”,
 groups of musicians from the Senegalese Association of Pontevedra,
group of young Gypsies girls of our school, our Moroccan students, other
students are preparing pieces and songs of African musicians and other
UNESCO schools in the city that will be involved with performances of
their students: CEIP “Campolongo” and CEP “Marcos da Portela”.

• There remains the development of a “Digital book” (in Spanish and

English) about TST.

In the IPVCE “CHE GUEVARA” (Santa Clara-Cuba)

• Kept thenm in constant contact, we know they had a Seminar on the

TST, along with the Cuban schools participating in the project.

• We Knew the footprints of slavery in Sagua, Placetas, Remedios,

Caibarién, Camajuaní and Ranchuelo ( places of memory in the
villaclareña region).

• We learn about a Place of memory: “central Marcelo Salado Lastra”

(Reforma). The Cuban students made a tour led by an expert.

• African Festival during the national workshop about TSt in the IPVCE
“Che Guevara”.

• Participation in radio and television programs on the TST

• Lecture given by Dr. Gema Valdés Acosta, Doctor in Philology,

consulting professor in the department of letters at the Central University
of Las Villas and Representative of the UNESCO Chair in Latin American
studies at the University of Alcalá in Spain

In the NUSRAT SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL (Gambia)

After a very encouraging start, throughout the project development the

communication was broken , but we hope to recover it soon. Anyway, this first
contact prompted the curiosity of our students about that country and its places
of Memory.

Outstanding activities

• Promote the twinning with the Gambia school .

• Exploring new evidence of African descent

Partnership:
IES “Luis Seoane” (Pontevedra-Spain)
IPVCE “Che Guevara” (Santa Clara-Cuba)
Nusrat Senior Secondary School (Gambia)
S.B. “Sá de Bandeira” (Santarém-Portugal)