The Organisation of Rastafari in Unity

The Organisation of Rastafari in Unity (ORU) is the representative body of the Rastafari Community in the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis. Our name carries our method and our message at once: organisation — because a people must be structured to be strong; and unity — because division has always been the tool used against African people, and Inity is the answer to it.

We exist to organise, centralise and promote the enhancement of the Rastafari Community. “Centralise” is a deliberate word. For too long the energy, talent and faith of Rastafari has been spread thin across many separate efforts. ORU draws that energy into one channel so it can do real work — building programmes, defending rights, raising livelihoods and carrying the voice of the Rastafari Nation into rooms where decisions are made.

A people, a nation, a livity

When we speak of the Rastafari Community and the Rastafari Nation, we speak of more than a religion. Rastafari is a livity — a whole way of life rooted in the dignity of African people, the divinity InI recognise in His Imperial Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie I, and the determination to live naturally, righteously and free of the mental and material chains of Babylon.

That livity is lived right here in St. Kitts and Nevis, on islands shaped by the labour of enslaved Africans and by generations who refused to be broken. ORU stands in that long line of resistance and redemption. We are part of the worldwide Rastafari movement and the broader Pan-African family, and we are firmly planted in the soil and the story of our own Federation.

Our roots in the wider movement

The Rastafari movement rose in Jamaica in the 1930s out of the Pan-African teachings of the Right Excellent Marcus Mosiah Garvey, who told African people to look to Africa and to know their own greatness. The crowning of Ras Tafari Makonnen as Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia in 1930 was received by many as the fulfilment of prophecy, and from that root grew a faith and a culture that has since spread across the Caribbean, Africa and the world.

ORU honours that heritage and brings it home to St. Kitts and Nevis — not as something distant, but as a living, working organisation for our own community today.

How we work

ORU is built to last. We organise the community into committees and structures, each with its own responsibility, so that no part of our mission depends on one person or one moment. We reason together, we plan together, and we act together. We engage respectfully but firmly with government, with civil society and with partners across the region and the world. And we keep our feet on the ground: real programmes, real upliftment, real results for real people.

A firm, unshakable organisation for the development of future generations of Rastafari.