Vol. 79/No. 19      May 25, 2015

 
‘Africa called, Cuba answered’
tour begins in Canada
 
CALGARY, Alberta — José de Jesús Portilla García, director of the Department of Bilateral Collaboration in the Cuban Ministry of Public Health and a doctor who has participated in Cuban medical internationalist missions, will tour Canada May 14-30. He will speak on the theme “Africa Called, Cuba Answered,” including the decision of the revolutionary government to send 256 health care workers to the front lines of the fight against Ebola in West Africa.

Cuba currently has more than 50,000 volunteer health care workers aiding people in more than 60 countries around the globe. The internationalists often say, “We don’t give what’s left over; we share what we have.”

Portilla will speak in Calgary; Montreal; Kingston, Ottawa, Hamilton and Niagara, Ontario; Halifax, Nova Scotia; and Vancouver, British Columbia.

His tour will culminate in Toronto May 30, where he will join Fernando González, one of the Cuban Five, at a forum at the United Steelworkers union hall titled, “Cuba in the Struggle for a Better World.” The Cuban Five were reunited on Cuban soil last December, more than 16 years after they were arrested and railroaded to prison by the U.S. government.

The tour is organized by the Canadian Network On Cuba. For more information, email Isaac Saney, CNC Co-chair at isaney@hotmail.com or call (902) 449-4967.

— MICHEL DUGRÉ