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2) 20 branches and groups from the North to the South of Sweden. 3) We keep trying to increase the number of members and branches. The nation-wide tour in 2001 with Gladys Ayllón, ICAP, and Gerardo Alfonso, Nueva Trova, was of great help to this effort. The national board has several of its yearly five board meetings in different parts of the country. Board meeting on the Sunday and on the Saturday a public seminar about Cuba and Solidarity. This decentralisation and contact between the board and members around the country vitalizes the democracy and enthusiasm of the organisation. A news sheet is distributed to all members about the Association's internal questions, campaign work, etc. 4) We have a quarterly magazine called KUBA, we also have two web sites: ¡Cuba Va! with informative articles, news, links, contact persons around Sweden and ELAK (=Electronic Activists) with campaign materials and articles which have been refused by the established media. 5) Participation in the Northern European Brigade - which includes the Nordic Brigade - is increasing. Over twenty participants have already signed up for this year's winter brigade. 6) The Swedish-Cuban Association has got up a petition to spread information about the US manoevering in Geneva last March/April and to put pressure on the Swedish Government, which however sided with the USA, and was one of the first to sign the US/Uruguay resolution against Cuba. Two members of our Association participated in the manifestation for Cuba in Geneva, which showed Cubans on the Island that Cuba had friends who protested. The Swedish-Cuban Association has put forward suggestions on how to strengthen the support for Cuba in Geneva. 7) We are starting the Free the Cuban Five Campaign. We are building the national committee by making use of activists within our organisation and reaching out to other people who react when they hear about the Five. On the 12th of September we sent a letter to the president of the US and spread some flyers. For some months we have had the campaign on our web sites and spread information in our magazine KUBA and at public meetings, etc. Now we are spreading a new informative leaflet/flyer/handout and getting up a petition for the release of the five heroes. These new materials are being distributed to all our members now and are on one of our web sites. We shall start spreading these materials using our big e-mail list. Several branches of our Association participate in local networks against the US war efforts. We will spread the campaign Free the Five to these and also approach various humanitarian organisations, etc. As the campaign grows, famous personalities will join in. 8) The Swedish-Cuban Association has the ongoing fund-raising campaign Medicines for Cuba, which sends $20.000 a year to mediCuba. The Swedish-Cuban Association has just now started to organise a Health Care Professionals Network for Cuba. The goal is develop solidarity in an organised way within hospitals etc, spread information about Cuban health care, increase the funds given to Medicines for Cuba, collect donations of used hospital equipment and send it to Cuba in cooperation with the Swedish Practical Solidarity organisations, and build a mediCuba organisation in Sweden. For some time we have been waging a campaign called Eyeglasses for Cuba, in cooperation with Vision For All and Emmaus Björkå. It started with the shipment of a container with optical instruments and equipment valued at over one million Dollars. We are developing the forms of our cooperation at this very moment. Emmaus Björkå is part of Practical Solidarity and has shops and sends tons of donations, mostly used clothes to third world countries. 9) Boycot Bacardi! We have spread a lot of information about Bacardi, for instance in our magazine Kuba and on our web sites. We haven't yet been able to give priority to organising a special boycot campaign but we will. 10) We have a number of friendship schools and kindergartens in Cuba. We have cooperation with the University of Cienfuegos to which we send people who wish to study Spanish and they are all delighted. We help people do study visits to Cuba etc. We spread quite a lot of information to schools and university students. |
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