Unite to end discrimination and disrespect – SIPA Chair
People who live communities in the North Windward Constituency are being encouraged to unite in an effort to end discrimination and disrespect.
That call was made on Saturday March 7, 2026 from Chair of the St Vincent and the Grenadines Indigenous Peoples Association (SIPA), Joan Hoyte, who was delivering remarks at the second annual cultural exhibition of SIPA at the London Playing Field in Sandy Bay.
Hoyte said she was elated that the various organizations located above the Rabbacca Dry River decided to come together and form SIPA. The organisation comprises the Fancy Heritage Organization, the Owia Heritage Organization, the Sandy Bay Heritage Development Organization, the Kalinago Tribe, and the Garifuna Indigenous Peoples Association.
“We all agreed that we should serve as one umbrella organization to represent the interest of our people above the river because for too long, for too long, absolutely too long, we have been marginalized,” Hoyte stated.
“Everybody disrespects us, everybody…,” Hoyte told the gathering.
She said when she suggested unity, she knew that a collective voice addressing issues garners respect, and there are people from the North Windward community who are intelligent and can speak on the issues affecting people above the dry river.
“We are no longer the stupid Caribs, we are no longer the drunkard Caribs, we are no longer the lazy Caribs. And let me just say…we, as a people, kept this island free from the plantation system when all the other islands around were falling to the white man, and they were taking them over and dividing them up into plantations,” she said of the event held within the celebration of Heritage Month, that is observed in March.
“We carried people of St Vincent, kept our island free for almost 300 years. Look, we were told Christopher Columbus discovered us in 1493 somewhere along that time, they did not get to divide this island until they killed Joseph Chatoyer, our last Carib Chief, a Paramount Chief in 1795…that’s 300 years, and at that time, all the neighbouring islands were being cut up,” Hoyte said.
She said African slaves on the other islands “were high tailing it by any means necessary” to come over to St Vincent to join the Carib people.
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