Our woman in Havana

Isora (left) in front of the special peace mural at Havana University in support of the people of Palestine.

Isora Enriquez OFrarrill (left) is the Hands up Project’s voluntary coordinator in Havana, Cuba. She’s worked tirelessly to build connections between children and teachers in Cuba with their brothers and sisters in Palestine.

I actually went to Cuba to have a much needed break from it all. And I did do that in this fascinating, beautiful country. But I’m also grateful to Isora for drawing me in to strengthening our connections with schools there.

It started when I went to the Facultad de Lenguas Extranjeras at Havana University to give a talk about the Hands up Project for trainee English teachers. I was also taking lots of Hands up books to donate to the library, including large A3 pictures from the Stories Alive book for use with children. When I walked into the training room I was surprised to find a class of 9 year olds there alongside the teachers. So I ended up finding an immediate use for the materials, and doing a short bilingual storytelling session in Spanish and English , using one of the chants, and the pictures from the Palestinian story, Juha and the meat.

Ordering the pictures for ‘Juha and the meat’

Telling the story of ‘Juha and the meat’ in Spanish and English

We’re proud that lots of Hands up materials will be used in schools in Cuba

When I came back to Havana after a week at the beach, it was to launch the ‘Moon tell me truth’ exhibition at Havana University. Again I was very pleasantly surprised by the fact that Isora had organised for there to be lots of children there, handing me masses of drawings and messages of support to be passed on to the children of Palestine.

Trainee teachers with our poems ,and children with their artwork for the children of Palestine.

These have now been sent to our children in our Stories alive clubs in Gaza and our educational space in Cairo. And we’re proud of the fact that our kids have already replied with their own messages of support and solidarity. It’s really hard to do online link ups with schools in Cuba because of the 7 hour time difference and the lack of internet in schools there. But we hope that this will be the start of a long standing letter writing project between children in both contexts.

message and artwork by Besan in Gaza.

The children also asked if they could send a video message of support for their brothers and sisters in Palestine. Here it is.

Another lovely thing that happened at that event was that the trainee teachers had prepared to speak the poems from ‘Moon tell me truth’ as a way of launching the exhibition. Here are two examples.

Fatema’s words taking on a new life in Cuba.

‘Features’ by Nada Miqdad

And then the biggest surprise of all! I knew Isora wanted me to do a talk at their conference for teachers about how ‘Moon tell me truth’ came about. I didn’t know that I was expected to do this in my very rusty Spanish! Anyway I think I just about got away with it! The talk ended with some of the children performing one of the poems in English.

Thanks very much Isora for pushing me to do these things, and special thanks for everything you’ve done to make these beautiful connections for our children in Palestine.