23/03/2022
Baracoa, first steps of a dream
By Yailín Alicia Chacón Guzmán Guzman
Spanish Version http://artemisadiario.cu/2022/03/baracoa-primeros-pasos-de-un-sueno
Baracoa beach is a well know for Artemisa inhabitants. We have all have gone to this place at to spend a summer afternoon or a day by the sea. But to be honest, the beach appearance has been deteriorating over time. Dirt, garbage and lack of trees were a repeated image. However, there are projects created by the community and as such are growing a little every day, to make the place where they live a better place. That is the example of “For our environment” socio-cultural project.
The idea arises from a complaint in a neighbors assembly. “It was the response of the residents of district number 56. We were analyzing the deplorable situation in the area and the environment; as well as the absence of a center for leisure”, explains Ángela Olivera Rodríguez, project coordinator.
The meeting takes place on the beach they have cleaned so many times. All the members of the management group are there because they were now approved as a local development project. About plans, goals and dreams, as well as everything that has been covered in this time, we talk with the sea murmur as the best music.
About goals, dreams and future plans
"Since the beginning , the project have had proposals for intervention in the flora and fauna, spas, recreational and socio-cultural areas not available in the area, to allow the population's environment to be transformed," adds Bárbara Castellanos, in charge of sociocultural activities within the committee.
At first they collected garbage, reforested the entire beach, and little by little they have been joining people to this little place belonging to everyone.
After ten years they have also linked up with other existing projects in the community and the children have been an active part of the whole process. The idea is to educate environmentally those who live and are part of the community.
In this process they also discovered that they can be economically sustainable and allow others to show their work, in an equation where all they win .
“We expect to have a place for talent where they can meet and show their works. It would also be a useful place as a training room for meetings between neighbors, cultural activities and others, also for visitors”, the coordinator says .
Other services that the project sets as a goal are the production and sale of handicrafts, many from recycled elements after garbage collection.
This remains the Achilles heel of the community, as the existing method only causes more damage. They propose the collection with horse carts and have a place where everything is thrown away; at the same time do recycling, she says.
“We are also going to join the typical gastronomy, shows, photography service, sale of music and video CDs with the results of the local talent, the organization of exhibition fairs, workshops, courses and contests, as well as the various expressions of the performing arts.
The idea is to unite the productive sector of great importance for the national and foreign economy without forgetting how culture can be the agent of change.
Towards local development
The members of the management group have made a great effort , but also a lot of love in the project, in order to see a real change.
"The objectives, actions and tasks that the Project proposes to carry out are aimed at transforming the existing disproportion in the environment at Baracoa coast", Bárbara Castellanos comments .
"It is conceived with a multidisciplinary and sectoral approach, a joint project, where all the state intitutions and social in the territory that have specific missions in the Life Task Program of the Cuban State, the mass organizations and the population participate," says Carlos Mas, vice-coordinator of For our environment.
In their history they have managed to link the inhabitants and plant more than 7,000 coconut plants, fruit and timber trees. Now they are immersed in the road and the area for recreation.
The documentation is ready and in 2021 the design and construction began, but the Covid delayed the entire process. They hired a brigade from the Fund for Cultural Assets to make the wooden elements: such as tables and some equipment. They have already placed the first kiosk made with this material.
"We want to contribute through creative action, to the improvement of the ecosystem of the beach in the popular council, achieving local responsibility and the possibilities of environmental, socio-cultural and economic transformation," Olivera explains.
An overview
"The process of Community Cultural work from Uneac has been aimed at training, strengthening and promoting the work of our managers through projects," says Ana Gloria Díaz Hevia, Community Projects specialist and vice president of the organization in Artemisa.
“The Municipal Initiative for Local Development needs the active participation of municipal governments in their development strategy, through the management of economic projects able to self-financing, generating income in order to substitute imports, especially food, and obtaining profits for local benefit sustainable, as a complement to the productive strategies of the country”.
For this reason, projects like the one in Baracoa beach allow us to envision a future where everyone can win from the community , the knowledge and the desire to make and change their environment.
Along with this coexist other projects such as Preserve the ecosystem, with the initiative for the sanitation of the sea from diving. “Both arrive at the XXIII Edition of the National Contest “Community cultural work: Contributions, lessons learned and challenges”, a process that began in the Provincial Workshops for the Exchange of Experiences in 2021 and that will finish in the National Workshop for the Exchange of Experiences, to be held on May 4 and 5.
"Regarding Artemisa, in the XXII regional edition, 9 projects were presented, all advised on project management by Uneac."
"Local development is a process of agreement between various actors that interact in a given territory, fostering the permanent, creative and responsible participation of citizens through a common development project."
"Its objective is the generation of economic growth, equity, ecological sustainability, gender approach, quality and spatial and territorial balance, to raise the quality of life of each family, citizen and citizen who lives in that territory," the specialist says.
There is still a long way to go, but the first steps have already been taken with the holding of fairs in this community in Bauta and the installation of the first kiosk on the beach. The impact will be for the good of all; so far the environment has also benefited.
Making the community the best place, because it is our home, providing sources of work and income and educating from the culture are some of the advantages that will be reflected in the path that has been started.
TRANSLATION BY LMMS
