Reverend Pashington Obeng, Ph.D. is a Protestant minister and scholar, who was born and raised in Ghana, West Africa, and has been living and working in Massachusetts for more than 30 years. In 1998, he learned of a community of people of African descent, known as the Siddis, who have lived in India for more than 800 years. Some of their ancestors were brought to India as enslaved people, and some have continued to be burdened with working off the inherited debts of their ancestors through an Indian system known as "debt bondage."
In this episode of Higher Callings, Pash tells the story of the Siddi people, and describes some of the work that he and members of his church have done in support of the school for Siddi children run by Catholic nuns and Jesuit priests in Karnataka, India.
You can learn more about the Siddis at this website: https://africanindianalliance.org/
You can learn more about Pash here: https://hillschurch.org/church-staff/pash-obeng/
You can find Pash's book about the African presence in India here: https://www.amazon.com/Shaping-Membership-Defining-Nation-Cultural/dp/073911428X/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=