BY BRIAN TAYLOR

With just a few weeks before the July 1 deadline to turn in applications and payments, activists around the country are stepping up efforts to promote the U.S.-Cuba Youth Exchange. The trip, sponsored by the National Network on Cuba (NNOC), will allow young people from the United States to meet fellow students and workers in Cuba and find out the facts about the Cuban revolution for themselves.

"There are about 11 people so far who have all their money paid," said Brock Satter, one of the organizers of the New York U.S.-Cuba Youth Exchange Committee, at one of the weekly meetings of the group at the Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC). "I know of at least two more people who want to go and have the funds," said Noah Smith of the Venceremos Brigade at that meeting. A dozen students and other activists attended.

"The key question now is to help young people who want to go but can't afford it raise the funds for the trip," Satter said.

A variety of fundraising activities
The group put together a list of 50 youth who have expressed interest in going, of whom 14 have turned in applications. They include students from BMCC, Hunter College, and City College of New York, as well as a couple of young workers from the General Motors assembly plant in Tarrytown, New York.

Activists agreed to organize two fund-raisers in the next three weeks. They include a $7 all-you-can-eat picnic on June 22 and a June 29 dinner-dance and raffle-drawing party at Casa de las Américas . The group also drew up a checklist of organizational tasks so that activists could make sure everyone gets passports ready, organize time off work, and follow through on other details.

"It's important to redouble our efforts over the next month," said Satter. "Many of these youth will come back to report on their trip, write articles, speak on radio, and get more involved in activities to oppose the U.S. economic war on Cuba."

In Miami, Sandra Collado, a leader of the local Youth Exchange subcommittee of the Miami Coalition to End the U.S. Embargo of Cuba, reports: "We organized a picnic on May 26 and raised $300 even though it rained. The event concluded with a raffle drawing, with prizes like posters of Che Guevara," a leader of the Cuban revolution.

"Eleven people have turned in applications here," said Janine Dukes in Salt Lake City. "The group includes seven high school students from four schools, including leaders of the East High Gay-Straight Alliance and of the Young Democrats at West High.

The youth meet with activists in the Utah Cuba Solidarity Coalition every week." Fund-raising activities include a benefit concert with local bands, tabling at fairs and political events, and speaking at churches. A local Barnes and Nobles bookstore has agreed to sponsor a "book fair." One evening the store will donate a percentage of its sales toward the Exchange.

Laura Anderson of the Los Angeles Coalition in Solidarity with Cuba reports that 15 youth from that city turned in applications by the beginning of June and "more are on the way." The coalition just sent out a 300-piece mailing that included a fund-raising letter for the Youth Exchange.

"Our approach is that there will fund-raising or educational events every Saturday in June," Anderson said.

Study groups on Cuba help prepare participants
The Twin Cities Network on Cuba is organizing a study group to discuss collectively recent speeches by Fidel Castro and other leaders of the Cuban revolution to prepare for the trip. More than 30 people from the Minneapolis/St. Paul area have applied for the Exchange, says organizer Adriana Sánchez, a leader of the Twin Cities Cuba Network in Minnesota. Participants include 16 students from that campus, including six members each from the Black and Latino student organizations.

So far they have raised $700 from donations. Activists from the group will be featured at a June 16 meeting at Uhuru Books, the main Black community bookstore in the area. "We'll also be speaking at the All African Peoples Summit," said organizer Damon Tinnon. The June 8 engagement, he said, will focus on "Cuba's defense of Angola and the historic battle at Cuito Cuanavale at the end of the '80s where Cuban volunteers helped defeat the invading racist South African army once and for all."

Forty people attended a May 30 meeting at The Evergreen State College (TESC) in Olympia, Washington, titled "Cuba answers Helms-Burton! Report on May Day in Havana and Cuba's trade union convention." The event was sponsored by TESC's Marxist theory program and the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador. It featured trade unionists who participated in the April 27-30 congress of the Central Organization of Cuban Workers in Havana.

The Seattle-Cuba Friendshipment committee has organized a series of such reportback events on campuses and elsewhere with a key aim of recruiting people for the Youth Exchange. So far, 10 youth from Washington state have applied.

On June 1 the committee is showing the acclaimed Cuban film Strawberry and Chocolate at a community center on Bainbridge Island, where a number of high school students are interested in the trip.  
 
 
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