You have a unique opportunity this spring to spend two weeks in Cuba to learn firsthand how workers and farmers there made a revolution in 1959, what it means for them today and the example it provides for us here and throughout the world. Sign up now for the April 22-May 6 May Day Brigade to Cuba!
The brigade is organized by the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) and the National Network on Cuba is coordinating efforts to sign people up in the U.S.
Participants will join Cuban farmers in agricultural work, meet with representatives of Cuba’s student, trade union, women’s and other mass organizations; visit historic sites in the revolution; and have a chance to talk with veterans of those struggles. They will join with hundreds of thousands in the May Day march in Havana and participate in an international conference of solidarity with the socialist revolution the next day.
During her recent East Coast tour, Griselda Aguilera, a veteran of the 1961 literacy campaign in Cuba, encouraged people to join the brigade. More than a dozen of those who came to her meetings in New York and New Jersey Feb. 8-12 signed up for more information.
“I’ve been studying the legacy of the Cuban Revolution and want to experience it myself for the first time,” Jorge Cruz, 19, a student at City College in New York, told the Militant Feb. 19. Meeting and hearing Aguilera, Cruz said, “solidified my desire to participate in the brigade.” Cruz said he’s working on convincing his professors to let him take his tests early so he can go.
A number of construction workers, members of Laborers’ International Union Local 79, organized a meeting at their hall to hear Aguilera, and some have signed up for the brigade.
The cost of the package, including meals and lodging in Cuba, is $675. Air travel, which costs extra, is being coordinated with the Marazul agency. Brigadistas will stay at the Julio Antonio Mella International Camp in Artemisa province, which can accommodate up to 220 people.
“If you want to go, don’t wait until the March 16 deadline to get your applications in,” Gail Walker, one of National Network on Cuba co-chairs and executive director of IFCO/Pastors for Peace, told the Militant Feb. 19. Applications and the full schedule can be downloaded at www.NNOC.info. Email: ICanGoToCuba@nnoc.info.