Just last week, the U.S. Customs and Border Protections gave the Oakland International Airport authorization to offer nonstop charter passenger service to Cuba as early as December. This recent decision will make it easier for Global Exchange to offer direct flights to Havana for our Cuba Reality Tours delegations from the West Coast.

However, with all this good news, the reality of traveling to Cuba could be at serious risk. Tomorrow, the House Appropriations Committee is meeting first thing in the morning, and Cuba may come up. According to our friends at the Latin American Working Group,

Opponents of exchange with Cuba will likely offer amendments to the financial services appropriations bill that will reverse the changes the President has made during his term in office – which has allowed travel by Cuban-American families, students and professors, religious groups, academics, musicians.

We can’t let this happen.

If your representative is a member of the Appropriations Committee, ask your representative to vote against ANY amendment that tightens travel restrictions. Send them an e-mail now.

Send a message to your representative today and help retain the progress that has been made in easing travel to Cuba.

Oakland International Airport charter flights could take off just in time for our Cuba New Years Delegations! Register for one of our Cuba delegations today, and you will qualify to receive a $150 discount. Just mention this blog post.

Together we can work to promote the normalization of U.S./Cuba relations through people-to-people ties with Cuba.

Join us for a webinar on March 1st at Noon (PST) to learn about what the recent changes to US travel restrictions to Cuba mean for you. We’ll explore the opportunities ahead and what the ongoing constraints still are without normalized diplomatic relations between our countries.

Global Exchange Reality Tours Cuba experts will discuss these topics with a policy analyst and a Cuba-expert lawyer. Don’t miss this opportunity to learn.

There will be a Q&A session after the presentation and you can ask your question via chat-room or phone. Please, join us and help us out by forwarding this message to your friends.

To participate register today at: http://www.globalexchange.org/travelcuba

Suggested donation: $5-$20 sliding scale
If you cannot attend you will receive a recording of the webinar audio.

What people said about past Global Exchange webinars:
“A force multiplier”
“An excellent webinar filled with useful information”
“Nice job. Well worth the $10.”
“It was indeed informative.”
“Very well run.”
“Thanks so much. That was awesome.”
“Gracias to you all….very informative, very helpful!”

This is a cross-post from our

Today, Global Exchange’s Zarah Patriana thanks two past Reality Tours participants, Anne Kelly and Mark Van Wormer.

I met Anne and Mark on a Reality Tour delegation to Nicaragua in 2008. The delegation focused on Fair Trade and Alternatives to Neo-Liberalism and everyone on the trip was interested in the issue of Fair Trade just like myself, so I knew I would find common ground with my fellow travelers. Little did I know that I would also make some long lasting friendships with fellow social justice activists. On the delegation we shared an incredible experience of meeting with different human rights activists, indigenous groups, labor unionists and even got to slide down a volcano. However, I think the most eye opening part of the delegation was our stay at La Corona, a Fair Trade coffee cooperative where we met with Fair Trade farmers and were able to see first hand the positive benefits of the Fair Trade system. For Fair Trade advocates, this experience really contextualized our work as activists, and gave us fuel to energize the movement back home. Anne and Mark have since strengthened their work as Fair Trade activists at home in New York, even going on another Reality Tour delegation to Guatemala, connecting with more Fair Trade activists and women’s cooperatives. Anne is currently working at the the Labor-Religion Coalition of NY State where she is the Fair Trade Coordinator where she is working with teachers who are engaging a new generation of activists. She has even made strong connections with Global Exchange’s Fair Trade cocoa campaign being participating organizations in both the Give Fair Trade and Reverse Trick-or-Treating campaigns.

I just love that kids are learning what solidarity means – that we are all connected and that injustice in one part of the world impacts us all. That, of course, is central to my work with labor unions too. Social justice and human rights issues – the dignity of the worker, living wage, working against oppression, the right to organize – are union issues too and Fair Trade embodies all these concerns.

Our delegation at La Corona Cooperative in Nicaragua.

Mark is a photographer and teaches photo, video and digital imaging at Emma Willard, a private independent school for girls. If a picture is worth a thousand words, Mark has produced volumes of novels. Mark has been able to use his photography to share his Fair Trade stories, even having some of his (and Anne’s) photos featured in the 2011 Fair Trade calendar by the Fair Trade Resource Network. See those photos and more at Mark’s photography website. Together, both Anne and Mark have been able to make an impact by engaging the students at Emma Willard to make it the first Fair Trade high school in all of US. A tremendous feat for the Fair Trade Universities movement! And it is these stories from Anne and Mark that I am extending a very warm thank you from me and Global Exchange for being exceptional Reality Tours participants and being a great example of global citizens amongst the Global Exchange community and beyond. They have been able to take their experience on two delegations of meeting the people, learning the facts and then making a real difference. As Anne shares:

I am grateful, so much, for the doors that have been opened to me through my connection with Global Exchange. I continue to be inspired, every day, by the people and places we connected with on our trips. You know about how wonderful our Nicaragua experience was. To be welcomed, deeply, into peoples’ lives and their struggles is humbling beyond words and enriches my life. Our trip to Guatemala has also connected us. We’re now on the board of Mayan Hands, an absolutely wonderful FT organization that works with Mayan weavers in the highlands of Guatemala. We’ve been back (me to learn Spanish!) and folks from Mayan Hands have even come to visit us. It was exciting to bring them to classrooms and to see FT stores here in the US.

I feel very lucky to have met Anne and Mark and am absolutely thrilled to be able to share their stories with you. Thank you! Make your own long lasting connections and go on a Reality Tour delegation. Who are YOU thankful for? Add your own thank you message in the Comments section to recognize someone you think is doing great social justice work. And if you feel so inspired, Retweet and Share this post to help spread the recognition all of our ‘Thankees’ deserve. Thank YOU.

]]> http://www.globalexchange.org/blogs/realitytours/2010/11/18/giving-thanks-part-4-making-long-lasting-connections-with-anne-kelly-mark-van-wormer/feed/ 0 http://www.globalexchange.org/blogs/realitytours/2010/10/07/past-participant-larry-heath-shares-his-insights-on-his-reality-tour-to-nicaragua/ http://www.globalexchange.org/blogs/realitytours/2010/10/07/past-participant-larry-heath-shares-his-insights-on-his-reality-tour-to-nicaragua/#comments Thu, 07 Oct 2010 01:16:39 +0000 Zarah Patriana http://www.globalexchange.org/blogs/realitytours/?p=402 This past July, Reality Tour participant, Larry Heath went on the Reality Tour delegation to Nicaragua to explore Fair Trade and alternatives to neo-liberalism. Read on as he shares his experience with us.]]> This past July, Reality Tour participant, Larry Heath went on the Reality Tour delegation to Nicaragua to explore Fair Trade and alternatives to neo-liberalism. Read on as he shares his experience with us.

Our tour coincided with the 31st anniversary of the Sandinista revolution and the overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship on July 19.

Throughout the ten days leading up to the celebration, I witnessed the mixture of hope for a more prosperous and democratic country and the disillusionment and cynicism over the terrible economy and legislative paralysis that currently exists in Nicaragua. Unemployment is rampant.  Selling trinkets on the street and washing windshields on cars stopped at intersections are examples of the kinds of activity people engage in to have some kind of income.

The National Assembly is so polarized that no majority exists to make basic decisions, such as appoint Supreme Court judges or members of the Supreme Electoral Commission.  Also, incumbent Daniel Ortega blatantly is violating the Nicaraguan constitution by running for a second presidential term. During the tour I could easily see that governance and respect for the law are huge issues that appear almost insurmountable. Elitism, impunity and a lack of transparency in governmental economic activity undermine the fabric of Nicaraguan society.

I was impressed with civil society organizations that have emerged outside the sphere of partisan party politics to deal with these many problems. Our group met with unionists, worker groups, fair trade advocates, university students working on environmental issues and a women’s network, as well as experienced a home-stay with a number of families who work on their 3 or 4 acre coffee farms and belong to a cooperative which allows them to get technical/economic assistance, as well as a fair price for their coffee.

During the home stay and throughout the entire trip I was continually impressed with the resiliency and resourcefulness of Nicaraguan citizens and equally impressed by their extraordinary historical, i.e. colonialism, US imperialism, and environmental, i.e. recurrent devastating earthquakes and hurricanes, dilemmas. I left the country after the tour feeling very connected to its people and had a renewed commitment to continue to advocate for fair trade and for a more just foreign policy to Central America.

As many nations struggle to provide their LGBTQ citizens with the appropriate all-encompassing freedoms and protections deserved of all human beings, South Africa looks on as it boasts one of the most progressive constitutions on the books. After the dissolution of apartheid in 1994, discrimination based on sexual orientation was explicitly prohibited within the Bill of Rights thus ensuring gay and lesbian equality. Additionally, in 2006 South Africa became Africa’s first and the world’s fifth country to recognize same-sex marriage.

While we in the United States are seeing the slow but steady progression of such rights, unfortunately the same cannot be said for the majority of Africans. Even with South Africa’s enviable constitution, Africa in its entirety has experienced a regressive shift in the provision of basic human rights for its LGBTQ citizens. Thirty-eight African countries have laws that criminalize homosexuality, all of which have penalties ranging from minor fines to the death penalty for engaging in homosexual behavior. Many of these laws found their initial creation with colonial times and today continue to serve as outdated and repressive blockades for the advancement of LGBTQ rights. Not only are members of the African LGBTQ community harassed, humiliated, arrested, imprisoned, tortured and even killed, but those friends, families and activists seen as supporting and/or lobbying for their cause experience many of the same consequences.

The most recent and publicized case of the many to arise within the recent wave of homophobia in Africa was the introduction of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill in 2009. The bill is still currently being debated but if passed in its current form by the Ugandan Parliament, it would punish those individuals engaging in acts of homosexuality with life imprisonment. In addition, offenders found to have had sex with a minor or a disabled person or to have infected their partner(s) with HIV/Aids are to face the death penalty. The proposed legislation even goes so far as to punish a third party for the failure to inform the police of possible homosexual activity.

Standing in stark contrast to the current cascade of homophobic campaigns, legislation, and rhetoric plaguing the Africa continent, is South Africa. Not to say that South Africa reigns as the desired example for all countries hoping to perfectly align their laws and the lived realities of their people, because surely South Africa has its flaws. But its progressive laws represent a noble and very brave start to the path of complete LGBTQ acceptance both continentally and globally.

One of the fundamental goals of the LGBTQ Rainbow Nation Delegation is to learn about how South Africa deals with the major schisms that exist between its laws and the day-to-day experiences of LGBTQ citizens. Despite their rights and freedoms having been explicitly outlined within the Bill of Rights, many members of the LGBTQ community see the translation of such rights and freedoms unrealized as they live feeling unsafe in their own nation. More specifically, a demographic currently experiencing this particular sentiment are black lesbians residing in various South African townships. There has been a recent spike in the rape of these women, such an overwhelming spike exhibiting such malicious intent that the phenomenon has earned its own term – “corrective rape.”

“Corrective rape” occurs when a member of the LGBTQ community is raped by a member of the opposite sex in an effort to “correct” their sexual orientation. The most publicized case of this practice to emerge in South Africa occurred in April 2008 when Eudy Simelane, member of the South African women’s football (soccer) team, was gang-raped and murdered by a group of men. An avid campaigner for LGBTQ equality rights, Simelane was one of the first women to live openly as a lesbian in both her hometown and on the national stage.

Anti-gay acts such as the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill (2009) and South Africa’s “corrective rape” trend not only spot the African social landscape, but the world’s as well. It can be safely said that there isn’t a country in the world that exists as completely free of all degrees of homophobia. What sets South Africa apart from its fellow African nations and from the rest of the world is its unique, complicated and very tumultuous history. The acute awareness of such history has manifested into laws that theoretically accept, accommodate, and protect ALL its citizens. With such guidelines in place, social environments ranging from urban to rural, rich to poor, black to white can begin to move forward and internalize a progressive mentality that normalizes the absolute equality of LGBTQ South Africans.

It is one of the major intentions of the LGBTQ Rainbow Nation Delegation to connect members and supporters of the global LGBTQ community. By learning about parallel issues and struggles that connect us we can create a broad knowledge base and awareness that will ensure no one is left behind in the fight for equal rights – African or American. More specifically, this delegation will serve as proof that hope exists for LGBTQ rights across the African continent and that the myths of homosexuality as ‘un-African’ and/or a ‘Western imposition’ quite simply, fall flat. Being LGBTQ identified is an aspect of the human condition and transcends all ethnic and racial boundaries as exemplified by the existence of LGBTQ individuals everywhere in the world.

In addition to learning about historical and current issues facing South Africa’s LGBTQ community, don’t miss the opportunity to meet with leaders and activists at the forefront of South Africa’s LGBTQ equality movement. Intimate and exclusive, thought-provoking and rewarding, this delegation means to leave you feeling as part of a global (and colorful) family.

Blog piece written by Elliot Owen, Africa & Asia Reality Tours Program Associate.

Find out more information about the South Africa Rainbow Nation delegation on the Reality Tours website. You may also contact Alessandro at alessandro [at] globalexchange.org or Elliot at nabadu [at] gmail.com for more details.

Where you stand determines what you see…

In May of 2009, Erasmus Community students from the University of San Francisco went on a Customized Reality Tour to Uganda to learn about human trafficking with the Not For Sale Campaign.

During the delegation, the students met with various groups and organizations dealing with human rights, human trafficking, youth groups, met IDP camps, and more. The experiences and meetings were captured on film to originally just document the students’ travels, but then emerged into a documentary called ‘Ugandan Days‘ by Erika Myszynski. A synopsis of the film:

Initially created to document USF’s Erasmus Community students’ travels to Uganda, the trip became more than just an immersion, observation and social analysis of the Ugandan people. In researching child soldiery in war-torn Gulu (northern Uganda), many of us had been surprised to witness a world quite different from what we had read. Instead, we found a peaceful and progressive nation. The documentary reveals a people little scarred by their past struggles and Joseph Kony’s 23-year long war against order. Ugandan Days exposes how the war victims’ underlying pains are transformed into a humbling determination to improve the current situation. A message from Ugandans to Americans: Africa is not such a dark place. It is a place filled with  strength, community, resilience, and joy because of an undying hope to forgive and to survive.

Ugandan Days, a Documentary from Global Exchange on Vimeo.

A few words about the film from director, Erika Myszynski:

My documentary focuses on forgiveness and recovery—thus a major reason why Ugandans are still welcoming of foreigners and open to an understanding of our intentions. Social change or global improvement can only exist if people forgive one another and open their hearts, originating from faith in God and faith in community, which Ugandans embrace unconditionally. Fascinated by the Ugandan perspective on recovery, the video served as an inquiry for me into their faith and religion, both of which I discovered worked as their adhesive to keep their country unified and towards their hope for a better future. The Ugandans whom I met entrusted me with their stories and belief that I will share their truths as a plea to all Americans.

Watch the video and see and hear the stories of the people of Uganda through their own words.

Learn more about our Reality Tours delegations to Uganda or find out about our Customized Tours.

In February I went on a Global Exchange Reality Tour to Honduras. Honduras is a very poor country; it ranks 44th among 47 Western Hemisphere countries in per capita Gross Domestic Product. It is a democracy with two major parties and six and a half million people. I’m a retired UNI professor who has visited many developing countries.

Our purpose was to meet with activists in communities around this small country to learn first hand their major problems and efforts to improve their quality of life. My first impression in Tegucigalpa was the presence of guns. Small businesses often have an armed guard who doesn’t appear to be well-trained. A very small corner store might have floor-to-ceiling bars enclosing everything but the walk-in space and part of the counter. I did not need to be told not to walk outside at night. Our first visit was to a center that had been formed to gather information on the disappeared. Individuals involved in these death squads are now in the upper levels of government. Our then-ambassador, now our Director of National Intelligence, was fully informed about such activities. Now they are working to prevent abuse and torture in police stations and prisons, especially during the initial arrest. Youth gangs are on the rise and youths are at risk. We next visited a farmworker organization. A major problem is in getting a legal title to occupied land even when there is uncontested ownership. Such documentation is necessary to obtain loans. Some micro-finance is available. About 400,000 families are landless even though their constitution authorizes giving land to the landless.

Big agricultural firms get tax holidays. Their fear is that CAFTA and genetic-modified crops will destroy traditional agriculture. We met with a medical doctor who treats the poor plus victims of police treatment and exposure to heavy metals from mining operations. The day before our visit he was publicly demonstrating against the sale of alcohol to youth. This is supported by the major media (advertising revenue) and unopposed by the Catholic Church. He has received many death threats. We then traveled to one such surface mining community. Both surface and ground water are polluted. The company is fulfilling its obligations by transporting in clean water, but using trucks that are also used to haul cyanide-treated water (for leeching gold). It promises to leave this site, but without plans to do obligated remedial clean-up. Our next stop was a mountain community that had been subjected to wide-spread clearcutting of its native, diverse forest. The land is now covered with pine trees and sugar cane in flatter areas.

The community is assuming all responsibility for its future: holding workshops with invited outside speakers, establishing nursery projects to grow fruit and broadleaf trees and patrolling for fires during the hot and dry months. They questioned who the World Bank was helping by financing huge logging projects. Two indigenous organizations were visited. The Maya organization has taken non-violent, confrontational actions to get the government’s attention to their poverty and related needs. This has included taking over sawmills, chaining themselves to public buildings in Tegucigalpa and destroying a Columbus statue also in Tegucigalpa. They are very concerned about the privatization of education and the health system.

A day later we visited three men from their communities who were being held in prison on trumped-up charges (the Attorney General has found no reason to hold them). The Spanish government has put pressure on the Honduran government to release them. The corner of the large cell was covered with colorful cards from Amnesty International supporters. The other organization represented the black Garifuna of the North Coast. This long band of sandy beaches is an ideal vacation area. Wealthy Honduran investors are planning a half-dozen five-star resorts on the most desirable segment. The problem is that this is Garifuna land.

Four of their members have been killed and others sometimes can’t stay in their homes at night for security reasons. The local police can’t be trusted. Honduran lawyers who would like to represent them can’t because doing so would effectively end their careers. Our last visit was with a remarkable HIV-AIDS center in San Pedro. One building housed the medical clinic and another food and school supplies for families needing assistance. The third contained donated machines run by former maquiladora workers that manufactured baby clothes. These workers had been illegally tested for HIV, found to be positive and fired. This community worked to increase awareness in schools and even talked to sex workers.

Our last breakfast was in a restaurant in a small commercial cluster on a major highway. It was no longer open for dinner because there were too many shootings there after the work day. Western tourists, I believed (and hoped), were a protected class. We might be potential investors. I was very impressed with the level of political awareness among the people we talked to. They know their politicians and are not easily impressed nor discouraged. They recognize that their interests are not those of the wealthier or more powerful, but they have kept their dignity.

From our perspective private economic initiative is something to be welcomed, but from theirs it’s what are they trying to take from me? International institutions push the down-sizing of government as a necessary condition for loans. What the people of Honduras need is a government that respects the rights of all of its people.

Brazil is home to “the world’s largest street party,” Carnaval, and home also to 4.5 million landless peasants. On Copacabana and Ipanema, Rio’s spectacular beaches, Cariocas—the city’s residents–mingle with well-to-do tourists in the sun, sand, and surf; but Rio also contains enormous favelas or slums. The disparity between the wealthiest and the poorest Brazilians is extreme, although the current government of President “Lula” da Silva is struggling mightily to overcome poverty. Elected in 2002, Lula, a member of the Workers’ Party (PT), has had to compromise in a number of directions. But he has nevertheless been able to introduce some new policies such as his “Zero Hunger” project. And he is supportive of the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST), which since 1984 has succeeded in settling over 300,000 previously landless families on their own small farms. This process has not been peaceful; landowners’ hired gunmen have sometimes assassinated MST leaders and massacred peasants. Lula’s victory in 2002 derived partly from the PT’s earlier successes at the local and regional levels. When the PT came to power in Porto Alegre, a southern city of 1.3 million and a hub of MST organizing, one of its innovations was “participatory budgeting.” This entails having the citizens form committees which every four years make and vote on proposals for funding, using from 5% to 12% of the city’s budget. The policy has resulted in new schools, clinics, workers’ cooperatives, and recycling facilities, among other improvements. This experiment in grassroots democracy is now spreading to other Brazilian cities and states.

It was, in part, the interest generated both by the MST and by participatory budgeting that made Porto Alegre a logical site for the first World Social Forum (WSF), which in 2001 drew some 10,000 activists representing dozens of organizations from around the world. The second and third WSFs were also held in Porto Alegre; then in 2004, the fourth WSF met in Mumbai, India. Through its first four years, the WSF grew enormously. When the fifth WSF was held again in Porto Alegre in late January 2005, the participants numbered over 150,000, representing 135 countries from every continent except Antarctica . Ellen and I came as members of Global Exchange and of the Progressive Faculty Coalition of IU. The size of the opening march on Jan. 26 was estimated at 200,000. Some 35,000 participants stayed in the Youth Camp; its small, colorful tents formed a bright contrast to the dozens of large white tents, pitched along a three-mile stretch of the Guiaba River, in which hundreds of sessions and over two-thousand talks were delivered. Some of the major speeches had to be given in nearby arenas; two of these were by heads of state—Lula and Hugo Chávez of Venezuela—who both drew enormous crowds. And there were many other leaders and dignitaries from around the world, including several Nobel Prize winners.

Created to provide a counterweight to the annual meetings of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the WSF is now the main annual event expressing the ideas and growing energy of what are often called “the new social movements,” but what the mainstream media persist in calling “the anti-globalization movement.” This misnomer implies that its supporters are opposed to globalization of any sort, although the WSF is obviously an expression of a growing, highly networked and cosmopolitan internationalism. If “globalization” is taken to mean only the policies of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the giant corporations, then indeed the WSF and its participants are opposed to it, because we see it as economic exploitation that benefits the wealthiest countries (the North) at the expense of the poorest countries (the South), and only the wealthy elites within all countries. For those not yet aware of this, I recommend Globalization and Its Discontents by Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize winning economist and former senior Vice-President of the World Bank. “While I was at the World Bank,” Stiglitz begins, “I saw firthand the devastating effects that [corporate] globalization can have on developing countries, and especially the poor within those countries.” Stiglitz was one of the speakers at the fourth WSF in Mumbai. Even more disturbing are the revelations in Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins, who spoke at this year’s WSF.

Major themes at every WSF have included the reduction or outright cancellation of the enormous and growing debts supposedly owed by the poor countries to the WB, the IMF, and the wealthy countries. Organizations such as British-based Jubilee 500, whose main goal is debt cancellation, are among the dozens of NGOs participating in the WSFs. To many, including UN Secretary Kofi Annan, who advocates debt cancellation for the African countries, getting out from under the financial mountains they are buried beneath is the necessary first step for the poor countries to at long last start on the path of real economic development and stability.

A second WSF theme is protection of the global “commons.” That term refers to all of the natural resources that have until recently been regarded as belonging to the public rather than to private individuals or corporations. In the past, despite colonization and the creation of large, privately owned plantations and estates, every village and locality had its “commons,” its parcel of land where everyone had a right to plant their gardens or graze their sheep. Today, all countries and cities still have versions of such commons: forests, parks, gardens, beaches, plazas that belong to the public. But, as the controversy over drilling for oil in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge indicates, the pressure is on to privatize what remains of these public lands.

Water is another resource that corporations like Bechtel and Coca Cola are greedily trying to bottle up (or privatize) and then resell to the world. A number of the sessions at this year’s WSF focused on protecting water as a commons, not a commodity. These sessions featured speeches by such activists as Canadian Maude Barlow, author of Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World’s Water. And there were also sessions dealing with “food sovereignty,” or the right of communities and regions to grow and market the food they need for themselves, without being coerced by so-called “free-trade” demands of the WTO, the World Bank, and the IMF to grow cash crops for export while allowing giant agribusinesses such as Monsanto and Cargill to “dump” surplus crops in their markets, thus undermining the livelihoods of millions of small farmers. Related to the question of food sovereignty is the issue of corporations patenting and monopolizing seeds and other organic products, many of which have been developed and collectively owned—shared, that is–by peasant and indigenous communities for centuries. As well, there is growing concern throughout the world over corporations’ developing and forcing genetically modified organisms onto the market, with or without the knowledge of consumers about their possible environmental and health effects. We attended sessions that dealt with women’s rights and protections (sponsored by the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom); with ending racial, class, and gender discrimination (sponsored by the World Dignity Forum); and with ending the occupation of Iraq (sponsored by a large number of anti-war groups). Organized by our own Progressive Faculty Coalition, the session in which I participated engaged professors and students from the U.S., Canada, Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina in dialogue about how to make our academic work more effective in the struggle for global justice. I should add that, as U.S. citizens, we encountered no animosity at the WSF or elsewhere in Brazil; but the anger toward the Bush regime, both because of its invasion of Iraq and because of its support of corporate globalization at all costs, was everywhere apparent.

That the fifth World Social Forum was a great success was evident during its closing ceremonies. As at earlier WSFs, on a huge wall participants posted hundreds of proposals for creating “a better world.” And, though it ran somewhat counter to the democratic ethos of the WSF as a space and place for the entirely free exchange of ideas about creating “a better world,” nineteen organizers produced a “manifesto” of proposals. These are in effect a summary of the main themes from all five WSFs: peace and nonviolence; justice and dignity for all; an end to world poverty; protection of both global and local commons; “fair trade” instead of misnamed “free trade”; and as much open, democratic participation as possible. In the spirit of its democratic cosmopolitanism, next year the WSF will meet in four regional sites, and the year after that somewhere in Africa, perhaps Capetown. Is the entire endeavor utopian? Of course it is! And if ever the world needed to think in utopian terms, it is surely now, as we confront continued war and violence in the Middle East; genocide in the Sudan and elsewhere; growing instead of shrinking world poverty and hunger; global warming and the rapid privatization of the global commons. On a planet where, since 2000 or 2001 and 9-11 or 2004 (take your pick), sources of hope seem to be disappearing as rapidly as species, the World Social Forum is one of the most hopeful signs on the political horizon.

Prisca Esther Miranda Hernandez, RN (center), head of nursing in the senior unit at Miguel Enriques Hospital in Havana, has worked at the facility for 38 years. Despite low wages, her dedication to nursing remains strong. Photo by Nicole Heyman

In the valley of Viñales, Cuba’s finest tobacco is grown, nurtured by the climate and rich red soil that make Cuban cigars the best in the world. Vitamin-rich fruits and vegetables are sold at roadside stands.

This lush valley also is the setting for 10 consultorios, neighborhood clinics that have formed the backbone of the Cuban health care system since they were established more than a decade ago.

At one small consultorio on Calle del Cementerio (Cemetery Street), a mother brings in her 7-month-old baby to be weighed. She is warmly greeted by Nadilia Ramos Bernal, RN, a general nurse who has staffed the consultorio for 11 years, side by side with the neighborhood physician. Nurse and patient, longtime neighbors, catch up on news while the infant is weighed.

Ramos Bernal, 41, has worked in nursing for 23 years. After pursuing a three-year course of study from ages 16 to 19, she began her career in a hospital in Pinar del Rio, a city in the province of the same name, working in intensive care, burns, maternity and pediatrics.

“I came back to Viñales polyclinic in emergency, working here until the system of consultorios was begun back in ’89 or ’90,” she said, explaining that a polyclinic falls in a category between a hospital and a consultorio.

“My hours are 8 to 12 and 1 to 5, but our services are available on demand 24 hours a day. We have people drop in, and we go to the homes of patients daily.”

The main health issues Ramos Bernal sees at the consultorio are hypertension, diabetes, parasitic disease and hepatitis. “We have only two AIDS patients, and they’re treated like others,” she said. “Educating them to live safely with their condition is a priority.”

Short on supplies As elsewhere in Cuba, medications are in short supply, especially for asthma. To the many American visitors who come to Cuba bringing medical supplies cut off by the U.S. embargo, she makes a heartfelt plea:

“Tell visitors to bring asthma medicines here, to consultorio No.6 in Viñales, where we have more shortages than in the city,” Ramos Bernal said.

Antibiotics and even Band-Aids are in short supply. “We don’t even have enough disposable syringes, so we have to sterilize them and reserve them for HIV patients and for those with hepatitis B and C.” Residents are more aware and better educated about AIDS in the municipalities, such as Viñales. In the cities, more people contract HIV because of tourism.

Ramos Bernal, who was drawn to health care as a child, especially likes to work with children and the elderly. Because she feels that education and public health are well-respected professions in Cuba, Ramos Bernal takes pride in her work.

“Our primary focus is on preventive medicine, which is the logical response to our country’s economic reality, as well as a sensible foundation for any health care system.”

Every patient has access to care, with a diagnostic every three years that includes a cell check and blood tests, as well as immunizations every 10 years, Ramos Bernal said. A diagnostic test for breast cancer is available and women are taught to do monthly breast self-exams.

The consultorios provide extensive prenatal education that includes classes on nutrition and breast-feeding benefits. For those at high risk, maternity homes with eight beds to a room focus on rest and nutrition.

Cuba’s low infant mortality rate–7.2 deaths per 1,000 births–reflects the country’s policy of preventive health care during prenatal, postpartum and infancy, along with breast-feeding for at least four months, in accordance with World Health Organization guidelines, said Joan Edelstein, DrPH, MSN, RN, a professor of nursing at San Jose State University.

Baby-friendly policies Edelstein, who also is an integrated perinatal education coordinator at Kaiser Permanente Hayward in California, said that Cuba is one of 10 countries in the world that top breast-feeding rates. “Of Cuba’s 57 maternity hospitals, 52 have earned “baby-friendly” certification, and the other five have filed certificates of intent to become certified.”

The Baby-friendly Hospital Initiative, launched in 1991 by WHO and UNICEF, is a global network whose goal is to give every baby the best start in life by creating a health care environment where breast-feeding is the norm, thus helping to reduce the levels of infant morbidity and mortality in each country.

On a recent Health and Healing trip to Cuba sponsored by Global Exchange, a human rights organization based in San Francisco, Edelstein visited a neonatal intensive care unit at America Arias, an ob/gyn hospital in Cuba’s capital, Havana.

Babies are given no artificial formula, only breast milk, which is hand-expressed by the mother because there are no electric or manual pumps in Cuba.

Edelstein also observed the nurse-to-patient ratio and found it comparable to the United States.

America Arias holds about 200 patients and delivers about 400 babies per month. A typical hospital stay is between two and three days, five for birth by cesarean. In comparison, a 200-bed general hospital in Northern California would have 250 deliveries in a month, a one- to two-day stay for normal deliveries and three days for cesarean.

Edelstein did note the unsanitary conditions at several hospitals brought about by a lack of resources–basic items such as soap, towels, toilet paper and toilet seats, and sometimes even running water. In the worst circumstances, buckets of water must be hauled from the street.

Traditions live on Nurses in Cuba still wear white uniforms and caps that identify their levels of experience and authority, such as charge nurse or supervisor, even at the psychiatric hospitals, Edelstein said.

There’s no nursing shortage in Cuba, where the system of education for health professionals is excellent and free. A two-tier program for nurses who follow a three- or five-year course of study is available, but there is no transition between the two, Edelstein said.

Those who complete the three-year program and want to advance to the next level must start over again, for a total of eight years. That’s not much different, she said, than in the United States in the early ’70s, which was why Edelstein pursued a baccalaureate degree in psychology rather than nursing.

Prisca Esther Miranda Hernandez, RN, head of nursing in the senior unit at Miguel Enriques Hospital in Havana, where she has worked for 38 years, continues to take special technical nursing courses to keep her skills up-to-date and supplement the three-year nursing degree she initially completed.

She is one of six nurses and five doctors who work in the outpatient unit that serves mainly mental patients. Like all nurses in Cuba, she earns 300 pesos, about $15 a month.

Physicians earn 525 pesos, or $26 a month. This reflects a recent wage increase for both professions.

“The salary is low, but we arrange our lives and try to buy what we need because much is free, including medical care. What hurts us greatly are the shortages in medical necessities,” Miranda Hernandez said.

Her typical workday is from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday, with 15 days of vacation twice a year. The typical retirement age is 55 for women, 60 for men. She’s 69 and still going strong.

“As long as my mind is clear, I’ll continue to work,” she said. “This is my house, my specialty and my commitment to my country.”