Cuban partners support hurricane response and long-term programs

On September 27, 2022, Hurricane Ian tore through the Caribbean making landfall in Cuba. In all, 63,000 homes were damaged, and 9,000 crops were destroyed. Cuba imports 80% its food, and only 48.7% of the arable land was planted in 2022, so food quickly became scarce. Flour was so hard to come by that even the Episcopal Church of Cuba, a long-time PWRDF partner, noted that they had trouble sourcing communion wafers for church services.

Featured in the 2023 World of Gifts

Water Purification System Maintenance Training
In 2019, PWRDF supported the Integrated Development Program of the Episcopal Church of Cuba with the installation of water purification systems at local churches as communal water access. This year, we are supporting the training of community members to maintain the water purification systems in 50 rural communities. Your gift of $75 will increase water, sanitation and hygiene, and ensure access drinking, clean and safe water for meal preparation and food conservation.  
 
Rabbit farm
The Integrated Development Program of the Episcopal Church of Cuba promotes healthy diet and increased consumption of nutritional foods in 50 rural communities. The Program aims to help increase meat consumption in these communities to improve nutrition. Your gift of $75 will provide a family with 10 rabbits, which improve overall nutrition with a protein source, but can also improve income by selling or breeding the rabbits.

In December, PWRDF provided $10,000 to the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Center (CMMLK), a partner working in Pinar del Rio Province. Basic social services, schools, water supply, crops, food distribution were all compromised.

Natural disasters like hurricanes and drought are cyclical in Cuba and cause many families to lose their homes and farms and make it harder to produce food. These current scarcities are worsened by the restrictions on financial support from expatriate family members, mainly from the United States. Reduced tourism, COVID, and measures of the former Trump administration, combined with Hurricane Ian, have added up to a major economic crisis. There are drastic shortages of food and medicines worsening peoples’ hygiene, nutrition and psychological health.

In February 2023, PWRDF allocated an additional $10,000 to the CMMLK to provide food, medicines and psychosocial rehabilitation for the most vulnerable families affected by Hurricane Ian. CMMLK will work strategically with the Episcopal Church of Cuba, through its Integrated Development Program, to distribute medicines among communities they serve.

CMMLK is just one of many historic and ecumenical partnerships in Cuba. It began in 1997, with training and education for Cuban religious and community leaders, and to support projects for urban agriculture and community development.

In 1996, PWRDF promoted a partnership with the Centro Cristiano de Reflexión y Diálogo (Christian Center of Reflection and Dialogue), to provide training on integrated, sustainable and ecological development and on alternative sources of energy for the local rural population in the province of Matanzas.

In 1994, PWRDF established a partnership with the Council of Churches of Cuba to support their Sustainable Development Program designed to improve the quality of life and conditions for food production and food security of families in urban and rural communities.

More recently, in 2013, PWRDF began funding the Integral Development Program of the Episcopal Church of Cuba. This program has raised awareness and empowered rural and poor communities to end food scarcity, poor nutrition and dependency. The program generates work and income for people and improves the nutrition levels of children and mothers. It demonstrates that transformative social change and self-sufficiency are possible through innovative projects carried out by people themselves.

PWRDF and some 20 ecumenical and development agencies and Union organizations are having strategic discussions to foster awareness about the extreme crisis in Cuba. Also, this ad hoc group has invited the Canadian government to discuss solutions and actions to provide food and medicines due to the scarcity suffered by the population. Read the letter in English and in French.

– José Zárate is the Latin America and Indigenous Program Coordinator for PWRDF.