00:00Petroleum.
00:13Cuba started a new school year this week,
00:16a mid-year mark by the escalation of U.S. aggressions against the island.
00:19In classrooms, teachers, students and families are looking for new ways
00:23to protect the right to education.
00:25Let's take a look.
00:28September has begun, and Cuba is back to school.
00:32More than eight months of U.S. energy blockade and secondary sanctions
00:36have affected the daily lives of teachers and students alike,
00:39but the commitment to education is stronger.
00:44Last school year, we had to implement a kind of blended learning program
00:48because of the economic difficulties the country was facing.
00:51But this school year, despite those same difficulties,
00:54we have all our students and all our teachers.
00:57We know all the situations we are facing, but we are fully committed to the task.
01:04We like what we do, and we put all our effort into it.
01:06So, yes, it is an effort, but it is not an effort in vain.
01:10It is an effort that comes from the heart, from the happiness of being here with them.
01:14The San Alejandro National Academy of Fine Arts trains new generations of artists.
01:19Today, its teachers return to the classroom with the challenge of supporting their students
01:24in an increasingly complex context.
01:29It is tough, tough in every sense, because there are so many negative things affecting them
01:33at the same time.
01:34And they are teenagers, which also means dealing with the physical and psychological changes
01:38they normally go through, on top of the situations the country is facing.
01:42I think it means making a superhuman effort given the circumstances.
01:46When the United States imposed a total oil blockade against the island in January,
01:51Cuba's education system had to be redesigned, relocating students and teachers,
01:56expanding remote follow-up, and coordinating work among schools.
02:00Today, all that experience has become a lesson.
02:03We are already prepared.
02:05We have already gone through a period of difficulties and adapted.
02:08It gave us the opportunity to look for solutions.
02:13Finding a balance between that dynamic and making sure they can get home at a reasonable time,
02:17assigning the right tasks, tasks that are specific and that actually contribute to their learning.
02:26I have had students here who have to go to the park before it gets dark
02:29so they can finish their painting assignments or whatever they are working on.
02:32But they do it.
02:33They do it because they are interested and motivated.
02:37The joint effort of the entire educational community is one of the keys to facing external pressure.
02:44When teachers and students found themselves in that situation,
02:50many teachers took in students into their homes.
02:56The children themselves have offered to help and said,
03:01three students can stay at my house.
03:03Two students can stay at my house.
03:05My father can take X number of students to school.
03:07Sometimes parents wait and ask, where are you going?
03:10They even help the teachers.
03:12Teacher, you need to go.
03:13We can take you there.
03:16In these small gestures lies the resilience of a community
03:20that is unwilling to give up its new generation's right to education.
03:25Sometimes we do a lot with very little.
03:27For example, what we showed you in the portrait workshop,
03:29many of the works are done with pencil and graphite.
03:31It is an affordable material, universal in the visual arts and within anyone's reach.
03:35Just a simple piece of paper and with that alone we can create a work of art.
03:39So, as I tell you, it all depends on what you do with the materials.
03:42Our education in Cuba will not stop.
03:47If there is electricity, we teach.
03:49If there is no electricity, we teach anyway.
03:53There are alternatives.
03:54If we cannot see in the classroom, we go outside.
03:58That is what landscape painting is for.
04:00That is what outdoor drawing is for.
04:02Or we work in the hallways.
04:04The point is that you cannot stop providing knowledge
04:07just because there is a difficulty.
04:09Disculptá.
04:11Belén de los Santos, Luis Ernesto Cristi,
04:13for Tell Us Your English, from Havana, Cuba.
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