AMU’s intervention to support communion entrepreneurs in Cuba during the hardest phases of the pandemic has ended. From their testimonies we discovered how that aid spontaneously generated others.
Y. is the manager of a workshop of handcrafted products (mainly wooden rosaries) where 8 other people work. With the spread of the pandemic, sales and then production stopped. Even though he had to provide for his family, his elderly parents and a disabled aunt, when Y. received the project subsidy he did not hesitate to share it with the other collaborators so as to ensure support for everyone. Furthermore, Y. traveled several kilometers almost every week to go fishing in a river and distribute the fish to the neediest families in his village. M. also has his job as the only source of income for his family: he distributes bread to a hospital, a school and a military barracks using his horse-drawn cart. During the hardest phases of the pandemic, work stopped and the aid received was the only means to support his family. Sharing the meat of a pig he owned with other families in difficulty was his commitment to reciprocity. G. is a craftsman who was no longer able to sell his products during the emergency. Initially, to overcome the difficulties and support his wife and their baby girl of a few months, he resorted to his savings, not forgetting to also help other families in difficulty by distributing basic necessities, such as rice, which he had managed to buy. After a period in which he himself was supported by aid, he has now resumed his activity and continues to share what he can with those who still cannot even afford to meet their basic needs.
The commitment of the people who have received support, in “giving back” the help received (in goods, time, material or immaterial help) to continue helping other vulnerable people is a concrete example that reciprocity can arise even in emergency situations, restoring dignity and amplifying the development potential of the entire community.
