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Boulder-Cuba Sister City Organization
"Promoting cultural sharing, understanding, and exchange."
What's New:
CUBAN ARTIST AND ART HISTORIAN TO VISIT BOULDER
Renowned Cuban artist, Luis Eliades Rodríguez from Baracoa, Cuba, and art historian Jorge Nuñez from Guantánamo will be guests of BOCUSCO from April 7-11, 2013.
Artist Luis Eliades Rodriguez and art historian Jorge Nuñez will present “The Art and Culture of Eastern Cuba” on Monday, April 8 at 7:30 p.m. at Frasier Manor, 350 Ponca Place, 4th Floor Assembly Room. The presentation is free and open to the public. A reception with light refreshments will follow in the Sky Lounge.
BOCUSCO will also hold a members-only reception with Eliades and Nuñez on Wednesday, April 10. For more information on becoming a BOCUSCO member please go the membership information at the bottom of this page.
Jorge Nuñez received his degree in art history from the University of Havana and has written extensively on topics ranging from the Francophone influence in Cuban culture to current cinema in Cuba. He is currently Professor of Cuban Culture at the University of Guantánamo in Guantánamo City, Cuba.
Luis Eliades, of Baracoa, Cuba is especially known for his depictions of Afro Cuban themes and meticulously detailed pen and ink drawings. A member of the National League of Artists and Writers of Cuba, his paintings can be found at the UNICEF Institute of Studies of Cuban Revolution in New York, and in private collections around the globe.
Luis Eliades Rodríguez with Babalú Aye/San Lazaro
For more about Eliades' art please visit Luis Eliades Rodríguez.
CUBA TRAVEL
BOCUSCO People-to-People Cuba Delegation May 9-21, 2013
“Interacting with the people of Cuba: Arts, Environment, and Cuisine”
4 nights Havana; 1 night Santiago de Cuba; 2 nights Guantánamo; 4 nights Baracoa
This trip is filled. Our next People to People trip to Cuba will be in November, 2013. If you would like to be on the wait list, please contact us at bocusco@yahoo.com. BOCUSCO holds a license from the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the Department of the Treasury to conduct non-academic educational/people to people travel to Cuba.
More information about the November trip will be on the website in early summer.
Hurricane Relief
Thanks to everyone who has contributed to hurricane Sandy relief in eastern Cuba. BOCUSCO contributed to medical relief containers sent by MEDICC and Global Links and received this message:
"Thanks to the support we received from individuals and organization across the US, we were able to ship 4 containers in November and December to help hospitals in Santiago. Two more are planned for late January / early February. We could not have have been able to provide 6 containers of medical aid so quickly without the help of supporters like your organization."
On October 25, Hurricane Sandy tore through eastern Cuba leaving destruction, devastation, and death in Guantánamo, Holguín and especially Santiago de Cuba provinces. See photos below.
Relief efforts are ongoing. If you would like to help, please send your tax deductible donation marked "Hurricane Sandy relief to:
Larry Gibson, BOCUSCO Treasurer, 1805 33rd St., Boulder, CO 80301.
THANK YOU!
Photos of Santiago de Cuba taken October 26, 2012. © Julio Larramendi
Ongoing projects :
Boulder Sister Cities in a trunk
The Boulder History Museum is busy gathering art, cultural artifacts, and resources from each of Boulder's seven sister cities and preparing them to travel to area classrooms or community groups. The Cuba trunk containing 64 items from or about Cuba including maps, books, art work, stamps, musical instruments etc is ready! Please contact Emilie at ekintner@boulderhistory.org for more information.
Cuba Travel
We are pleased to announce that the Boulder-Cuba Sister City Organization was granted a non-academic educational/people-to-people license to travel to Cuba by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
Our license for 2013-2014 has been renewed.
Please contact us for information on upcoming trips: bocusco@yahoo.com
Environmental Publications
To see some of the publications about eastern Cuba that BOCUSCO has supported over the years, visit: Ediciones Nuevos Mundos
Shipping medical equipment and supplies to Eastern Cuba
Since 2006 the Boulder-Cuba Sister City Organization has been raising funds to sponsor the shipment of medical equipment and supplies to Guantánamo province in conjunction with Denver-based Project C.U.R.E. www.projectcure.org. We are pleased to announce that the first FIVE 40’ cargo containers have arrived at their destinations: a container of hurricane relief supplies following the devastion of Hurricane Ike; as well as containers to the main hospital in Guantánamo which serves the entire province including Yateras; the Guantánamo Pediatric Hospital; the main hospital in Baracoa, and the hospital in Palenque, Yateras.
We would like to thank all of the donors, sponsors and volunteers who have contributed to the success of this project. Thanks to everyone’s efforts and generosity, we have been able to provide one of the poorest provinces of Cuba with such supplies as X-ray machines, anesthesia machines, mamography units, operating tables, stethoscopes, microscopes, laboratory supplies, defibrillators, and much more. Please visit our HEALTH committee page to learn more about health care in Yateras and our health related projects. THANK YOU!!
About the Boulder-Cuba Sister City Organization
The Boulder Cuba Sister City Organization (BOCUSCO), is a 501(c)3 non-profit, non-political, all-volunteer citizen network which exists to create lasting partnerships to promote cultural sharing, understanding and exchange between citizens of Boulder, Colorado and the municipality of Yateras, Guantánamo, Cuba. Yateras, a municipality located in the mountainous easternmost Cuban province of Guantánamo, became Boulder’s sixth sister city in 2002. President Eisenhower promoted a people-to-people initiative in 1956 to involve individuals in citizen diplomacy, with the hope that personal relationships, fostered through sister city, county, and state affiliations, would lessen the chance of future world conflicts. Sister Cities International (SCI) is a nonprofit citizen diplomacy network that creates and strengthens partnerships between U.S. and international communities. SCI promotes peace through mutual respect, understanding, and cooperation. SCI currently represents more than 2,500 communities in 134 countries around the world. Boulder is a member of SCI and has other sister cities in Japan, Mexico, Nicaragua, Tibet, Kenya and Tajikistan.
Although many of our exchanges and activities involve the community of Yateras, we are also involved in projects, such as health and environmental projects, in other areas of Guantánamo Province including Guantánamo City and Baracoa. BOCUSCO organizes activities, with support from the Boulder community, through its five committees: Arts and Education, Environment and Sustainability, Health, Music and Dance, Sports.
Since 2005 BOCUSCO has been working in collaboration with U.S. government-licensed organizations to ship mountain bikes, wheelchairs, medical equipment and supplies, school supplies, athletic equipment and footwear to Yateras.
In addition to those ongoing projects, we have prioritized a project for 2013 for which we are currently raising funds. To fulfill our goal of bringing more awareness of Cuba and its rich culture to the Boulder community, we are planning to host two artists from Baracoa, Cuba in late spring. We also hope to be able to continue offering BOCUSCO members the opportunity to interact with Cuban citizens by raveling to Cuba with us on an educational/people to people visit.
(updated October 2012)
Donate
To make a tax-deductible donation please make check out to BOCUSCO and mail to
BOCUSCO
c/o Larry Gibson, Treasurer
1805 33rd St
Boulder, CO 80301
For information on becoming a member of the Boulder-Cuba Sister City Organization, click here: Membership Application
THANK YOU FOR VISITING OUR WEBSITE