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<\/p>\nMarch 2025<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Magic sneaks up on you, and all of a sudden you are immersed in it. Like a child in a bubble bath, you find yourself surrounded in and delighted by the magic that happens when good people do good things.\u00a0\u00a0 Such was my experience taking 13 Canadians to Cuba in January 2025.\u00a0\u00a0 One traveller brought with them the book Infectious Generosity, which they shared with the rest of us.\u00a0 It quickly began to feel like our theme\u2026<\/p>\n
Even before we left, there was the spontaneous donation of $1,000 CAD from a dairy farmer couple in Ontario who had come with me to Cuba in 2011 on a farmer-to-farmer tour.\u00a0 Do some good with it, they said.\u00a0 Supplemented by further donations from a couple in our tour group and a local medical clinic, we delivered $2,000 in much needed medical donations to the Children\u2019s Pediatric Teaching Hospital in Havana.\u00a0 Individual donations were pooled and shared with a local CDR and the Cienfuegos chapter of UNEAC (Cuban artists, writers and musicians).<\/p>\n
Following our visit to Cuba\u2019s iconic Finca Marta<\/a>, one couple in our group \u2013 who had brought down the book – was so inspired by the work of Fernando Funes Monzote that they generously donated $30,000 CAD to Finca Marta to help support his vision of community agriculture.\u00a0\u00a0 I will be wiring this off in a few weeks and Fernando\u2019s head is already dancing with the equipment he will buy and share with the other farms.<\/p>\n But this generosity didn\u2019t begin in 2025. Something in the warmth, generosity and bravery of Cuba and the Cuban people evokes it\u2026.\u00a0 Back in 2013, twenty Canadian farm couples who had come with me to Cuba over the years and been guided by my long-time Cuban tour partner Inti Napoles put together a \u201csocial capital\u201d mortgage fund (zero interest, payback in 5 years) of $22,500 that allowed Inti and his wife to purchase a home.\u00a0 From some, this was a gift; Inti paid the rest back in 3 years.\u00a0 In May of 2020, when Cuba\u2019s tourism economy \u2013 already reeling from Trump\u2019s increased sanctions – was brought to a standstill by COVID, twenty-five Canadian farmers \u2013 some of them the same – put together an emergency fund which, over time, grew to $15,000 CAD (much of it gifted) to support Inti and his family through COVID times.\u00a0 Additionally, the two international projects I developed and led in Cuba to enhance dairy production and strengthen farmer cooperatives were supported by the contributions – in time and money \u2013 of Canadian farmers.<\/p>\n My 2025 group came home wanting to know how they could do more.\u00a0 How they could pressure Ottawa to stand up for our long-time friend Cuba when Trump inevitably turns his malevolent eye on this tiny Island with the temerity to be socialist and the discipline to say no to Trump\u2019s request to open hotels, casinos, golf courses, beauty pageants, television programs and media outlets?<\/p>\n We are about to enter a federal election.\u00a0 A perfect time to raise this. Cuba has sent doctors around the world to support communities.\u00a0 It is time Canada stood shoulder to shoulder with Cuba in the face of the American bully, generously committing aid and trade and investment to support the right of the Cuban people to sovereignty, dignity and respect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" March 2025 Magic sneaks up on you, and all of a sudden you are immersed in it. Like a child in a bubble bath, you find yourself surrounded in and delighted by the magic that happens when good people do good things.\u00a0\u00a0 Such was my experience taking 13 Canadians to Cuba in January 2025.\u00a0\u00a0 One traveller brought with them the book Infectious Generosity, which they shared with the rest of us.\u00a0 It quickly began to feel like our theme\u2026 Even before we left, there was the spontaneous donation of $1,000 CAD from a dairy farmer couple in Ontario who had … Continue reading Captured by Magic<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[70,82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cuba-current-issues","category-hot-topics","has-post-thumbnail","fallback-thumbnail"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theholmteam.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theholmteam.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theholmteam.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theholmteam.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theholmteam.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/theholmteam.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":485,"href":"https:\/\/theholmteam.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369\/revisions\/485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theholmteam.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theholmteam.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theholmteam.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}