ELI LABAN
CO-DIRECTOR,CINEMATOGRAPHER,
EDITOR
Eli LaBan is an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker based in Philadelphia. After learning about endangered language preservation in Nicaragua in 2016, he focused his career on projects supporting social development, cultural preservation and education across the world. He has since served as a Princeton in Africa Fellow in Rwanda and a Fulbright grantee in Honduras, where he first connected with Cesar and Dr. Ruíz. He also works as a Production Supervisor & Teaching Artist with Big Picture Alliance, overseeing youth apprenticeship programs and leading several award-winning projects in the Philadelphia area.
CESAR VARGAS
CO-DIRECTOR, EDUCATOR, WANARAGUA DANCER
Cesar Vargas Sabio is a language educator, researcher, and dedicated preservationist of Garifuna language and culture. Born in Sangrelaya, one of the last remaining strongholds of traditional Garifuna culture, he received his Master's in Didactics of Languages and Cultures from the National Autonomous University of Honduras and oversees primary school language teachers in Honduras. A Wanaragua dancer since childhood, Cesar witnessed the disappearance of traditional songs first-hand, and advocates for didactic language education that utilizes activities, poetry and music to engage and inspire the next generation.
DR.SANTIAGO RUIZ
ADVISOR, LANGUAGE RESEARCHER
Dr. Santiago J. Ruiz is a Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH), and one of the most prominent Garifuna scholars in the region. He served as Director of Scientific, Humanistic, and Technological Research at UNAH from 2018 to 2023. He received the "José Cecilio del Valle" National Science Award (2018) from the Honduran Ministry of Education and the Gold Plaque and Scroll Award (2024) from the National Congress of the Republic, bestowed upon distinguished Afro-descendants who have contributed significantly to Honduras. He is an Academic Member of the Advisory Board of the Journal of Higher Education and Society (ESS) of the UNESCO International Institute for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (UNESCO-IESALC). For decades, he has been working to standardize the teaching of the Garifuna language in primary schools and higher education in Honduras, and to ensure its revitalization and survival.
DR.PEITRA ARANA
BELIZE ADVISOR, CULTURAL RESEARCHER
Dr. Peitra Arana is a medical doctor with an interest in "all things Garifuna." She was a recipient of the Emerging Leaders of Americas Program through which she completed a nine month exchange at The Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on the Global Migrations of African Peoples at York University in Toronto, Canada, and she successfully completed graduate courses in African Diaspora and Oral History. Peitra has spent 30+ years documenting Garifuna oral history in Honduras, Guatemala and Belize where she founded Project Ounababa, a knowledge mobilization program that retrieved, documented and transmitted oral Garifuna traditions from older to younger generation. She has authored 17 web publications and 11 print publications, including academic papers and two chapters in the book The Garifuna Music Reader. In 2024 she wrote the Garifuna Manual for the Belize Garifuna Indigenous Trail. Her most recent publications are The Malí on Baliceaux: Garifuna healing reclaims spaces of historical trauma and Música y Danza: herencia de la nación Garífuna.
ROY CAYETANO
BELIZE ADVISOR, LINGUIST
Roy Cayetano is an educator, a linguist and an anthropologist. He earned bachelors and master degrees in anthropology and linguistics from the University of Michigan. He received diplomas in teaching from Belize Teachers’ College and the University of Leeds in the UK and was a Pearson Fellow at the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education in Canada. He taught primary, secondary, and tertiary levels in Belize and served in the Ministry of Education for twenty years. He held positions in the ministries of Rural Development and Culture, Human Development, Local Government and Labor, and the Senate, and was Secretary General of the Belize National Commission for UNESCO. In 1981, Roy wrote the paper “Towards a Common Garifuna Orthography”, because he felt there had long been a need to standardize Garifuna Orthography. As a former National Garifuna Council President, Roy compiled and submitted the candidature file to UNESCO that resulted in the May 18, 2001 recognition of the Garifuna Language Music and Dance as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of humanity. His publications include The People’s Garifuna Dictionary, Bungiu Wabá: Lemesi luma Uremu Garifuna, a booklet on the songs of the Garifuna Mass, and chapters in The Garifuna: A Nation Across Borders and Senderos: Revista de Etnomusicologia. He is the author of the classic Belizean poem “Drums of My Fathers”.