Community / People of Cuba ‘need every bit of help’ as fundraiser enters final week
PEOPLE in Cuba “need every bit of help we can give them” as a campaign to raise money and food for the country enters its final week.
Shetlander Joy Duncan said her For Da Love O Da Isles fundraiser has gone “incredibly well” and “at a rapid pace” after launching late last month.
It is a joint endeavour of Duncan and her cousin Eirene Houston, a documentary filmmaker who has curated the Havana-Glasgow film festival for the last 10 years.
They have held fundraising events across Shetland over the past three weeks, including well-attended sessions in Scalloway and Whalsay.
The pair will return to Havana on Monday 30 March, with Duncan’s locally well-known orange Volkswagen van full to the brim with donations.
Duncan said there had been a “tremendous response from the community at large” so far, with a final push now underway before they return to Cuba.
A performance of music festival drumming was followed by afternoon teas at Whalsay Primary School last Wednesday, which managed to raise £770.
That was followed by two events in the Scalloway Boating Club, starting with a Cuban night on Saturday – including music, cocktails and tropical outfits.
A Mother’s Day Sunday teas with a Cuban inflection then helped to raise over £2,000 across the weekend.
Duncan said that personal donations had also amounted to around £2,000 so far, with sponsorship coming from NorthLink Ferries and Jim’s Garage.
She said that all the suitcases they needed to take to Cuba were donated to them “in a matter of days”, and donations including rice, pasta, sanitary items, painkillers, dressings and tins continue to come in.
“We are still low however on baby stuff such as formula, Calpol, vitamins especially the B complexes and very little electrical stuff – they need handsets and powerbanks, and anything rechargeable such as fans, power banks or lights,” she said.
“With the electrical/charging stuff that is about the only item that we can potentially buy when we get out there, so if we go over our target we can take cash and buy those items there.”
Duncan said she had been communicating with friends and family in Cuba daily, with the situation there “worsening steadily”.
“They need every bit of help we can give them,” she added.
The For Da Love O Da Isles campaign was launched after Duncan made a month-long trip to Cuba in January.
“What I saw unfold in front of my own eyes was a country enter into an even deeper economic collapse and a humanitarian crisis,” Duncan said.
In 35 years of visiting the island she had never seen its people “in so much suffering”, she added.
“With no fuel coming in the whole infrastructure suffered, lack of electricity, medication, food supplies,” Duncan added.
“With no fuel, garbage could not be collected from the already overflowing streets.
“And the most difficult thing to witness at this time was the amount of elderly people, on a daily basis, searching in the waste for even the smallest scrap of food.”
Two events will be held this weekend, at Waas kirk café from 11am to 2pm on Friday and then from 9am at Bigton Bakery on Saturday, all to receive donations.
Physical donations can be made at either event or at 17 Endavoe in Scalloway until 25 March.
Monetary donations can be sent to this link, or people can get in contact with Duncan at 07870745033 until 30 March.
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