The Banwari Experience Company Limited, in its role as a leading educational and cultural tour operator in Trinidad and Tobago, has embarked on its most prolific education programme to date. We have accepted an invitation from the management of the Eric Williams Memorial Collection, housed at the St. Augustine Campus of The University of the West Indies to market visits to the Collection.

The collection consists of the library and archives of Dr. Eric Williams, our first Prime Minister, renowned scholar, international statesman, and the main architect of our Independence and breaking of our colonial shackles. He was also a leading figure in pre and post colonial attempts at unifying the Caribbean region.

Named to UNESCO's prestigious Memory of the World Register in 1999 and available for consultation by researchers and postgraduate students, the Collection consists of books and journals (approximately 7,000 volumes), covering a wide variety of disciplines: Philosophy, Religion, History, Economics, Politics, Education, Music and Art. While some rare books of the 18th and 19th centuries enhance its intrinsic value, its greatest strength is in the area of African and African-American history. There is also a broad Caribbean sweep, multi-lingual and very comprehensive.

The papers mainly comprise: correspondence from Heads of State as well as academic colleagues, such as W.E.B. Du Bois and Charles S. Johnson; published and unpublished manuscripts; research notes and photocopies of archival documents; drafts of historical writings; conference documents and a miscellany of reports; publications on the birth of the People's National Movement, the political party Williams founded. There is also a substantial portion of the over 600 speeches, documents, publications, lectures and books that comprise Williams' bibliography.

The Collection regularly solicits material for deposit from individuals and organizations which, while added to it, remains separately identified. An Oral History Project, as well as more than 150 calypsos with trenchant social commentary about Eric Williams' policies and persona, complement this archive, as does a Museum containing a wealth of emotive memorabilia of the period, with photographs that depict the seven decades of Williams' life and career.

We are now offering packages for tourists, foreign researchers, schools and other groups interested in information on Dr. Williams.