The Heritage Voyage of Return is an ocean voyage from Brazil/The Americas/The Caribbean to the African continent, with stops on a reverse route that was taken to bring kidnapped Africans as slaves to develop a world that was totally alien to them.
It is thus a triumphant return to ancestral soil, filled with limitless opportunities but, above all, a primary step towards exorcising from collective memory an era of violent displacement, the breakup of organic existence, racial disdain and dehumanization on a scale that remains unmatched in world history.
"Those effects are still in active operation across the globe."
Every two years – and eventually as an annual event - an African nation will host the voyage. It will be designated the symbolic focus, or fulcrum of the axis of origin and relocation.
HVR is different in temper and impulse from historic "Back to Africa" ventures undertaken as remedial recourse for an ancient travesty.
In both essence and content, HVR can be apprehended as a Triple-L formulation: Leisure, Learning and Linkage.
The inaugural voyage is projected for August, 2026, the commencement year of the Second Phase of the United Nations International Decade of Peoples of African Descent.
Understanding the profound significance of this journey back to ancestral lands.
The Voyage is a response to the historic clamour of reparatory justice that refuses to be silenced. It constitutes a first step in a sustained integrative process that will help consolidate existing links with origin and create new ones.
Children of the Diaspora constantly seek new directions, new values, new viewpoints… indeed new challenges. Often these are found in discards, in neglected or undervalued zones of the imagination.
"It is not an issue of superiority or inferiority of a novelty over the familiar, but simply – alternatives. The broadening of horizons. Africa remains a warehouse of the unexplored."
Historic locations with deep connections to the transatlantic slave trade and African heritage.
HRV is partnering with an experienced cruise company that will however dedicate this one voyage to the mission of the HVR. The roll-call of stops is made up of port sites that are in any significant way connected to the history of the Slave Trade, both in a negative and redressive mode.
For the first phase, the West African Coast, with its unmatched kidnap density is obviously the ultimate destination zone – Dakar, Essaouira, Tripoli, Accra, Lagos etc.
All leisure facilities – as in any vacation cruise ship – will be available. However, the ship will transform into its own central and unforgettable Port of Call through:
The journey begins from South America, tracing the reverse route of the transatlantic slave trade.
Connecting with diaspora communities and historical sites in the Caribbean.
Visiting key historical ports including Dakar and Accra, with ceremonies of return and reconnection.