Rebuilding a Dream: MEDICC Needs Your Help

The Isle of Youth was one of two Cuban regions hardest hit by Gustav, the worst hurricane to ravage Cuba in the last 50 years. The small island south of the mainland is well-named: it is home to over 5,000 students of medicine, about half Cuban and half students from low-income families in Latin America and the Caribbean who have pledged to serve in poor communities when they graduate.

Picking up the pieces, the most urgent tasks for the Isle are restoring sources of food, electricity and water. Next, rebuilding their homes: of 25,000 houses, 20,000 were at least partially affected, 10,000 roofs blown away.

But the bigger task ahead is to restore the Isle’s institutions, the livelihoods of its 85,000 residents—and its schools.

The Faculty of Medicine, even in temporary facilities, desperately needs to replenish stocks of reference textbooks lost when its buildings were destroyed. 

MEDICC already has one shipment of books on the way: help us send at least five more.

Thanks to the Free Trade in Ideas Act, medical literature is exempt from the otherwise draconian US embargo on Cuba, so these books can be airlifted directly to Cuba as soon as they can be purchased.

The future physicians of Cuba, Latin America and the Caribbean will surely join your dollars with their good works to make a difference in the communities they’ll serve.

See also: MEDICC Review’s current issue, which we have made available FREE online, outlining Cuba’s Strategies for Disaster Management.