Join the Cuba Brigade!

Registrations are now open to join the 34th annual Southern Cross Brigade to Cuba. As a participant, or brigadista, you will learn about the every day realities of living in Cuba and meet with doctors, teachers, urban agriculturalists, farmers and government workers. This is the most informative and exciting way to visit Cuba!
Please don't hesitate to contact us for more information.

Clarification on the state of the US blockade on Cuba

More information about the 'Yes, I Can' Adult Literacy Campaign in Australia:

In anticipation of the upcoming event on Thursday 31 March 2016 (see below post), here are some interesting links to give a bit of background for the Cuban 'Yes, I Can' Adult Literacy Campaign in Australia:

• The Literacy for Life Foundation is the organisation behind the running of the campaign in Australia. You can visit their website at: http://www.lflf.org.au/

• Listen to Professor Jack Beetson speaking on Radio National Breakfast on 24 Feb 2016 at: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/inaugural-cuban-awards-celebrates-australians/7194700

• Listen to this Green Left Weekly interview with Bob Boughton 27 June 2013 at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwtoX-MeNZE

• Read the article 'From Cuba with love' by Chris Ray, published in the Sydney Morning Herald on 19 July 2014: http://www.smh.com.au/national/from-cuba-with-love-20140713-3bvp5.html

• Read the article 'Cuba’s program for Aboriginal literacy expands in Australia' by Ron Poulsen and Manuele Lasalo, published in The Militant on 21 Sept 2015: http://www.themilitant.com/2015/7933/793306.html

Public meeting Thursday 31 March 2016:

Increasing 

Aboriginal

Adult Literacy

The Cuban ‘Yes, I Can!’ Literacy Campaign in Australia

Why has a Cuba-inspired campaign achieved such outstanding success where government schooling and adult courses have largely failed?

Hear about the campaign from these Aboriginal and Cuban speakers:

Jack Beetson is an Ngemba man, an Aboriginal leader and head of the Literacy for Life Foundation.

José Chala Leblanch is a Cuban educator from the Cuban Institute of Pedagogy for Latin America and the Caribbean and is advisor to the ‘Yes, I Can!’ Aboriginal Adult Literacy Campaign.

Yexenia Calzado is from the Asia & Oceania department of ICAP, the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples.

Mary Waites is a Ngemba woman and is the Campaign Coordinator in Brewarrina.

Up to 60% of Aboriginal adults living in rural and remote areas have functional illiteracy in English. The ‘Yes, I Can!’ (!Yo, Sí Puedo!) Aboriginal Adult Literacy Campaign, organised by the Literacy for Life Foundation, began in Wilcannia in 2012 with Cuban advisor, José Chala. Already, after the first pilots of the campaign, more than 100 Aboriginal adults from the Murdi Paaki region in western NSW have graduated.

The campaign draws on the successful mass literacy campaign in Cuba in 1961 as part of the popular social revolution there from 1959. The ‘Yes, I Can’ campaign has been used in 29 countries to help 8 million people develop basic literacy skills.

5.30pm Thurs 31 March

Lecture Theatre 104, New Law School

Eastern Ave, Sydney University

For more information please email sydneyacfs@gmail.com.

Cuba, the U.S. and the Future of the Revolution - Public event

CELEBRATE freedom for the Cuban Five and WELCOME the new Cuban Ambassador 

ACFS MONTHLY MEETING THURSDAY FEB 5

Dear ACFS members and supporters,

• The Cuban Five are free!
• US-Cuba talks on restoring diplomatic relations are under way
• Obama says he'll urge Congress to end the 'embargo'
• We have a new Cuban ambassador in Canberra
• Sydney will host the ACFS National Consultation on June 6-7
• Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) president Kenia Serrano will attend the Consultation  
• Southern Cross Brigade participants have returned to Australia 
• Chela and Matthew are back from Cuba and elsewhere

Welcome back! Our first monthly meeting for 2015 year will be: 

___________________________________________________

THIS THURSDAY February 5

6.30 - 8.30pm

NSW Teachers Federation Building

Level 1, 33 Mary Street, Surry Hills

4 mins walk from Central Station

(I need to confirm this venue - please check email/Facebook)

___________________________________________________

The proposed agenda is: 

1) President's report (focus on ACFS National Consultation)

2) 2014 Brigade highlights and impressions

2) Cuba visit slideshow by Chela and Matthew

Hope to see you there.

In solidarity,

Marce Cameron

President ACFS (Sydney)