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Diving With a Purpose

Meet the young scuba divers of colour who are searching for sunken slave ships.

Diving With a Purpose is a collective of Black scuba divers who search for long-lost slave wrecks. They are on a mission to raise the silent voices of the captive Africans who went down with those vessels and bring them back into our collective memory.

We join their youth diving program - YDWP - in Biscayne National Park, Florida Keys, as they head out onto the ocean in search of the Guerrero. With them is poet and professor Jason Vasser-Elong who has designed a creative writing course to help them articulate their feelings about the Atlantic slave trade as they uncover its legacy. The Guerrero was a pirate ship being chased by a British ship HMS Nimble when it ran aground in 1827. It had 561 captive Africans on board, of which 41 drowned.

The programme is the brainchild of Mr Kenneth Stewart who was named Sea Hero of the Year by Scuba Diving Magazine in 2018. We follow the group鈥檚 first attempt at 鈥渁nomaly hopping鈥.

Producer: Victoria Ferran
A Just Radio production for 大象传媒 World Service

(Photo: Young black diver underwater. Credit: Vando Rogers)

Available now

27 minutes

Last on

Sun 17 Mar 2024 23:32GMT

Broadcasts

  • Tue 12 Mar 2024 02:32GMT
  • Tue 12 Mar 2024 09:32GMT
  • Tue 12 Mar 2024 13:32GMT
  • Tue 12 Mar 2024 20:06GMT
  • Tue 12 Mar 2024 21:06GMT
  • Sat 16 Mar 2024 17:32GMT
  • Sun 17 Mar 2024 05:32GMT
  • Sun 17 Mar 2024 14:06GMT
  • Sun 17 Mar 2024 23:32GMT