CAIMITO, Cuba — Some 290 participants in the 13th May Day International Brigade to Cuba are meeting with workers, farmers, youth, and representatives of the country’s mass organizations, and learning firsthand about the revolution here.
The April 22-May 6 brigade, organized by the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP), includes workers, students and others from 31 countries. The largest contingent is from the U.S., with 74 brigadistas.
As part of our activities, participants are doing volunteer work alongside farmers in their fields in Havana and Camagüey provinces. On the joint Cuba-Mexico Friendship Cooperative, in Alquízar, 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Havana, pictured above, brigadistas sorted tarron root and sweet potatoes. In Camagüey, brigade members paired with high school students to spread fertilizer on a large organic farm that grows leaf vegetables.
We also visited and exchanged views with workers in a pharmaceutical plant active in developing vaccines for hepatitis and other diseases.
Brigade members joined the mass mobilization in Havana on May Day and attended an international solidarity conference the day after to discuss how to step up efforts in the United States and other countries to end the 57-year U.S. economic war against Cuba’s socialist revolution and the U.S. occupation of Cuban territory at Guantánamo Bay.