We’ve been thinking about it and working on it in Cuba for years. In the meantime, the Covid-19 pandemic has slowed down efforts somewhat, but the “Trans-Culture” project has never been abandoned and has been officially launched today: a cultural, or rather transcultural, incubator, bringing together 17 countries in the Caribbean: Antigua Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Cuba, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, Dominican Republic, Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago. All this under the charitable umbrella of UNESCO and the European Union, which spent fifteen million euros to fund this bold encounter with regional arts and talent.
The former Santa Clara Monastery, in Old Havana, is now being restored and converted into a school that will house 132 young students who specially came to Cuba to receive training in many artistic disciplines, in this luminous place: music, dance, composition and plastic arts. Performing arts, cinema, writing, restoration and cabinet making, ceramics, mosaics and stained glass, textiles, etc. The training will extend over several months, or even several years, so that these young people can return to their country with technical knowledge that will necessarily be useful to all residents of the region. What do we want?
Photo by Jacques Lanctot
Seven academic institutions are involved in the creation of this Caribbean Center for Cultural Training: the University of the West Indies, the International Film and Television School of San Antonio de los Baños, the University of the Arts, the Higher Institute of Design, and the University of San Antonio de los Baños. The College of San Jeronimo in Havana, the workshop of the School of Gaspar Melchior de Jovelanos in Havana, and of course the College of Santa Clara, a building dating back to the 17th century that actually serves as a school of heritage restoration arts. We are of course counting on a team of teachers and creative professionals who will be responsible for training these young talents in various specializations. They will also be given courses in marketing and management, two essential tools for success.
Between cultures, because we are not afraid, when we are an assertive nation, without complexes, to collide with other surrounding cultures, with all the cultural mixing and personal enrichment that this entails. Without fear of losing our identity.
Classes will be held, where necessary, in three languages: Spanish, French and English, as many Caribbean countries have a British colonial past. The majority of these young people were able to benefit from scholarships and therefore do not have to pay anything for their stay on the socialist island. There is no need to adapt to the climate either, because all of these countries are located in the Caribbean and face the same climatic conditions.
When Quebec becomes a true nation, we will also be able to participate in similar cross-cultural projects, without fear of losing our identity and language. Our fears will be behind us.
Photo by Jacques Lanctot
Photo by Jacques Lanctot
On the road to greater economic integration
The Association for Latin American Integration (ALADI) is organizing a trade fair in Havana these days, attended by representatives of import and export companies in the region. This is the first time that such an exhibition has been held in Cuba, and it is in its tenth edition. Entrepreneurs, businesswomen and businessmen from 368 companies from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela traveled to Havana to showcase their distinctive products on site and try to conclude agreements with the aim of opening new markets. The products that come from Cuba are available on the international scene: café, rhum, tabac, cocoa, milk, other sources that contain even an entire sample of pharmaceutical products, biotechnological fruits, and a point source. In Cuba.
“Total coffee aficionado. Travel buff. Music ninja. Bacon nerd. Beeraholic.”
More Stories
Blinken is under fire in Ukraine after he sang in a bar in Kiev
People traveling with a dog | The United States is tightening its rules
A “talisman” that prevents him from screaming or escaping: A man has been trapped for 26 years in his neighbor's livestock barn