International Education Conference Begins in Havana

Pedagogy 2011 - Education Conference, devoted to the unity of educators worldwide, opens its doors on Monday at Havana’s Karl Marx Theater with a special conference by Cuban Minister of Education Ena Elsa Velázquez Cobiella.

The Cuban minister of education will address aspects of the Cuban education system along with the Cuban international cooperation efforts such as its Yes, I Can literacy program.

More than 2,800 papers have been submitted to this year’s conference that will have the participation of 3,000 delegates from 20 countries.

With more than 53,000 totalling the number of participants in previous years, the conference has become an influential event not only for Latin America, but also for other regions.

From January 24 to 28, the Havana Convention Center will be the venue to special lectures by Cuban officials, including Minister of Higher Education Miguel Diaz-Canel, Minister of Culture Abel Prieto, and President of the Cuban Parliament Ricardo Alarcon de Quesada.
Also presenting during the conference will be education ministers from Venezuela, Bolivia and Guinea Bissau.
“For Cuban education professionals, this gathering represents the peak of a movement organized throughout the country from the school level to the top. This time, the Cuban delegation will be made up of 600 delegates, including 20 outstanding students selected based on their results at the National Education Sciences Fair. More than 149,880 teachers took part at base level meetings and more than 3,000 at the municipal and provincial levels. This movement is essential for the promotion of research and debates,” said Cuban Vice Minister of Education Rolando Forneiro.
Forneiro also noted that the reforms currently underway in Cuba’s education system aimed at training more efficient professionals and making better use of the available resources will be the subject of some of the lectures scheduled.
Among the examples he mentioned are reducing boarding schools while increasing the number of high schools in urban areas, and the incorporation of more than 7,000 retired professors into the education system.
Forneiro also announced that an exhibition would be inaugurated in the lobby of the Havana Convention Center, reflecting some of the achievements of Cuban education, especially Cuba’s support of literacy campaigns in other countries and the success of the Yes, I can teaching method.
“The Pedagogy 2011 Conference coincides with the 50th anniversary of the literacy campaign carried out in our country following the 1959 revolution. One of the symposiums to be held parallel to the conference will deal with the history of this important campaign,” he added.
Some of the issues to be discussed are the instillation of human values; teacher’s training; culture and education; physical education, sports and recreation; education quality control; comprehensive education programs for children 6 years and under; environmental education; family, women and education from a gender perspective; health and sex promotion and education programs; scientific education programs; communication and publishing; and education sciences and scientific research.
Special forums will be held to analyze the works of important figures, such as Jose Marti, Simon Bolivar, Ernesto Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, and other Latin American and Caribbean heroes.
Participants will have the opportunity to visits different education facilities in Havana, and other places of cultural and scientific interest. In addition, there will be 79 courses offered for delegates on relevant issues, which will be delivered by prestigious Cuban and foreign teachers and researchers.
This year’s conference is dedicated to the 50th Anniversary of the Cuban Literacy Campaign and the last day, January 28, will be dedicated to Cuban National Hero Jose Marti.
The Cuban Literacy Campaign was a year-long effort to abolish illiteracy in Cuba after the 1959 triumph of the Cuban Revolution. It began on January 1, 1960 and ended on December 22, 1961. The period of the Literacy Campaign is referred to as the “Year of Education” in Cuba. During 1961, the literacy rate of Cuba increased from 76% to 96% and continued until it was completely wiped out in Cuba.
The literacy campaign was part of the revolutionary reforms immediately implemented by Fidel Castro that included agrarian reform, healthcare reform, and educational reform, all of which dramatically improved the quality of life among the lowest sectors of Cuban society.
The Literacy Campaign also aimed to create a collective identity of unity, an attitude of combat, courage, intelligence, and a sense of history.
It is estimated that 1,000,000 Cubans were directly involved (as teachers or students) in the Literacy Campaign). There were four categories of workers:
“Conrado Benitez” Brigade (Conrado Benetiz Brigadistas)—100,000 young volunteers (ages 10–19) who left school to live and work along with their students in the countryside. The number of students leaving schools to volunteer was so great that an alternative education was put in place for 8 months of the 1961 school year.
Popular Alphabetizers (Alfabetizadores populares)—Adults who volunteered to teach in cities or towns. Some13,000 factory workers held classes for their illiterate co-workers after hours. This group also includes the numerous individuals who taught friends, neighbors, or family members out of their own homes.
The Patria o Muerte Brigade—A group of 15,000 adult workers who were paid to teach in remote rural locations through an arrangement that their co-workers would fill in for them, so that the workforce of Cuba remained strong.
Schoolteacher Brigades—A group of 15,000 professional teachers who oversaw the technical and organizational aspects of the campaign. As 1961 progressed, their involvement grew to the extent that most teachers participated full-time for a majority of the campaign.
The government provided teaching supplies to volunteers, and workers that traveled to rural locations to teach received: clothes, books, blankets, lamps, and hammocks.
Many of the Literacy Campaign’s volunteers went on to pursue teaching careers, and the rate of teachers is more than 10 times higher than it was before the revolution. Before the revolutionary government nationalized schools, private institutions often excluded large segments of society; wealthy Cubans often received exemplary instruction in private schools, while children of the working class received low-quality education, or did not attend school at all. Education became accessible to all after 1959 triumph of the Revolution.

http://www.juventudrebelde.co.cu/

Cuba shoots its first zombie movie Juan Of The Dead

Blood-spattered, flesh-eating monsters have been roaming the Cuban capital, Havana, in recent months - all part of filming for the country's first zombie movie.

Bearing a similar title to Britain's 2004 comedy horror Shaun Of The Dead, Juan Of The Dead's plot is actually closer to the 1984 ghoul classic Ghostbusters.

In the film, an entire city is overrun by zombies while Cuba's Communist leaders insist it is just a plot by US-backed dissidents to bring down the government.

So it is left to hero Juan - played by Cuban actor Alexis Diaz de Villegas - to rid the island of the undead for money.

But as the zombie outbreak begins to spread, he is left with no choice but to fight for his own survival.

The film, due for release later this year, was written and directed by 34-year-old Alejandro Brugues.

Continue reading the main story
“
Start Quote
Cuba has a great history of cinema and they've always been avid filmgoers”
End Quote
John Landis
Director of An American Werewolf In London
It is only his second movie since graduating from Cuba's International School of Film and Television.

"It's a zombie film but it's about Cubans and how we react in the face of a crisis because we've had a lot of them here over the last 50 years," Brugues told the BBC World Service's The Strand.

"It is a social comedy, it has a bit of everything. It has horror, it has action and it pretty much laughs in the face of problems."

The movie is a joint Cuban-Spanish production with much of the funding coming from overseas.

It is the latest in a wave of independent cinema which has been struggling to find its feet after state funding all but dried up following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Strawberry And Chocolate, which dealt with gays rights at a time when homosexuality was still illegal in Cuba, was the last film to enjoy international success after it was nominated for an Oscar in 1994.

Although Cuban cinema has been struggling in recent years, for many decades it was a flourishing industry.

Art-house classics

Shortly after the Cuban revolution in 1959, leader Fidel Castro created the Cuban Film Institute, known as ICAIC.


Will Juan of the Dead been successful in and outside Cuba? He believed that cultural and political change should go hand in hand.

As a result, many films such as the 1966 movie Death Of A Bureaucrat and 1968's Memories Of Underdevelopment, both directed by Tomas Gutierrez Alea, became art-house classics.

Humberto Solas' Lucia, which explores the lives of three women living through the country's political and social revolutions at three different points in history, is also considered a landmark in Cuban cinema.

It won the Golden Prize at the 1969 Moscow International Film Festival.

Cinema history

US director John Landis, who made the 1981 comedy horror classic An American Werewolf In London, in November visited the international school where Brugues studied.

He hailed the country's history and passion for film.

"Cuba has a great history of cinema and they've always been avid filmgoers," Landis said.

"After the revolution, Cubans used to steal prints from Miami and they'd have first-run movies. So movies would play in Havana before they'd play in LA. How did that happen?"

He added: "Cuban cinema has always been interesting and what is fun now is how they make political films because they always disguise it."

While there seems to be a sense of excitement building around Juan Of The Dead in Cuba, Brugues believes the industry needs to move with the times if the rest of the world is to sit up and take notice.

"At the moment there are two trends, films produced by the Cuba's state production company and films made outside of that," he said.

"There needs to be a balance but I think the two will eventually merge. When this happens I think this will produce the best Cuban cinema."


http://www.bbc.co.uk/

UK firm signs Cuban renewable energy deal

Generating power from sugar cane fibre and wild shrubs is at the heart of a pioneering link between a British company and the Cuban government.

Havana Energy, chaired by former Labour government minister Brian Wilson, plans to develop the technology to build biomass energy plants in the country.

The deal, with state-owned Zerus, comes as the country trials ways of working with private firms, after decades of running its economy through the state.

It is being valued at $250m (£157m).

The investment is being hailed as the first major renewable energy contract signed between Cuba and a British company.

It would see a pilot project at the Ciro Redondo sugar mill, 250 miles south-east of Havana, with a second stage of four further biomass plants at other mills, each of 32mw capacity.

A return on the investment is expected within five years.

According to Havana Energy, the country already produces 7% of its energy needs from renewable sources.

But there is potential for far more, particularly from using the the sugar cane plant.

As much as 50% of the country's energy needs - or 3000mw- could be provided by the burning of bagasse, the fibre left over after sugar cane is crushed at 56 sugar refineries in Cuba reckoned to have biomass potential.

In addition, about one million hectares of land on the island has been invaded by the marabu shrub, which is now being tested for its potential as an energy source in biomass burning.

The strategic agreement follows a visit in November 2010 by academics from Scotland, looking at ways in which they can help develop the country's renewable energy potential.

One of those who took part, Professor Martin Tangney, director of the Biofuel Research Centre at Edinburgh Napier University, commented on the sugar mill biomass plants plans.

He said: "It is an ideal process and one of the most efficient sources of renewable energy in the world.

"The next stage should be incorporating biofuels from the other waste products from the sugar cane."

'Excellent record'

Brian Wilson, who was minister for energy, trade and Scotland as well as an Ayrshire MP, said: "Having tried for more than a decade to promote closer economic links between the UK and Cuba, I am delighted to be involved in a project that demonstrates the benefits of such co-operation.

"Cuba has an excellent record both in providing electricity for its people and promoting environmental sustainability. This project will support both objectives".

Nelson Labrada, the Cuban government's vice-minister of sugar, said: "This strategy of using sugar cane bagasse for power generation avoids one of the primary problems with other biomass sources which is supply.

"In Cuba it is possible via the sugar mills and bagasse based power plants to generate up to 40% of the energy needs of the country today."

Havana Energy is a subsidiary of Esencia, a British company focused on trade with Cuba, which also works in the tourism sector.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/

British cruise ship Thomson Dream to dock in Cuba

A British-owned cruise ship is due to sail into the Cuban capital, Havana, on Wednesday, the first in years to dock in the Communist-run island.

The arrival of the Thomson Dream in Cuba is seen as a sign that European cruise companies are starting to return to the island.

Visits from European cruise ships dwindled after the then-president Fidel Castro criticised the business for leaving "rubbish, but little income".

The ship can carry 1,500 passengers.

The BBC's Michael Voss in Havana says the Thomson Dream will be by far the largest cruise ship to have sailed to Cuba in almost six years.

None of the many cruise companies based in Miami, Florida, can make the trip due to the decades-old US trade embargo which severely restricts trade with the island.

Our correspondent says Spanish- and Norwegian-owned cruise ships were the first to return to Cuba over the past few months.

In an interview with a Cuban magazine in December, a Cuban Ministry of Tourism official said Canada and Russia would also send cruise ships to the island.

The official said negotiations were also under way with Canadian cruise companies for their ships to dock there during the next winter season.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/