Teens from across the country will get diversity training and a chance to pick up a few sailing skills on board the Freedom Schooner Amistad this week.

Amistad is docked in Halifax Harbour until Aug. 7, marking the end of a world tour that began in Halifax last summer. Over the past year, the captain and crew have travelled to England, Portugal, Sierra Leone, Barbados, Charleston, South Carolina, and back to Nova Scotia.

The Atlantic Freedom Tour commemorates the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade in the former British Empire and the United States.

Capt. John Beebe-Center and his crew of 14 kicked off the education portion of their visit in Halifax last Friday by hosting a group of teens from Toronto who have been guests in Halifax over the past two weeks for the 25th anniversary of the Africville reunion.

This week more groups from across the country will climb aboard.

“They’ll come to the museum (Maritime Museum of the Atlantic) and do some training in the morning and then come for a sail in the afternoon,” Beebe-Center said yesterday.

They’ll learn the history of the end of the slave trade, and enough sailing skills for a three-hour cruise, he said.

Read original article published in Metro - Halifax on July 28th, 2008 

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