French NGO marks 20 years of helping the people of Cuba
On Thursday (April 23), at the initiative of the Cuba Coopération France organization, a trailer containing 50 hospital beds left the city of Ergué-Gaberic, in southern France, for Cuba, via the port of Brest. The beds will be delivered to a retirement home in Cienfuegos.
“The association Cuba Coopération France has two objectives: to develop cooperation between our two countries and to reveal the reality of Cuba, which still resists after 50 years of U.S. aggression,” said Jean-Louis Joachim, secretary general of the committee that arranged the shipment.
“Thanks to the action of two of our members, we received a gift of 45 hospital beds from the Laennec Hospital in Quimper, and five others from the retirement home in Saint-Quay-Portrieux,” he said, quoted by the regional newspaper Le Télégramme.
“We also collected 5,000 euros ($5,487) to ship them to Cuba,” Joaquim told the newspaper. “We expect to send two other containers before the end of 2015.” Eighty more beds will be included in those shipments, the organization’s website said.
Joaquim said that his organization has four other projects in motion: it’s assisting the city of Cienfuegos to improve its refuse collection system; participating in a Cienfuegos farm cooperative; helping to restore roofs, and preparing a cultural exchange between Cuban musicians and French musicians from the region of Bretagne (Brittany).
All donations are facilitated by Cuba’s ambassador to France, Héctor Igarza.
“We hail as a great victory of the Cuban people’s resistance the joint declaration of Dec. 17 in Panama by presidents Castro and Obama and we’re looking forward to the visit of [French president] François Hollande on May 11,” Joaquim added.
The private association Cuba Coopération France has been working for 20 years to help the people of Cuba on a city-to-city basis. To read more about it, in its website, click here.
To access its Facebook page, click here.
[Photo on top of members of the Cuba Coopération France association in Bretagne dispatch a trailer with hospital beds for Cuba.]
