For more information on future trips to Cuba with Witness for Peace, click here.
We have two new Wisconsin-led trips to share!
History, Arts and Musical Cultural Education Program
VISIT CUBA WITH CAMAGUEY JAZZ:
A Music and Cultural People-to-People Exchange Camaguey, Cuba – January 6-15, 2019
Sponsored by the Madison Camaguey Sister City Association (MCSCA), this third edition of our music and cultural exchanges with Camaguey promises to be bigger and better than the two previous visits. With more musicians joining us this time, and timing our arrival to coincide with el Dia de Reyes (Wise Kings Day or Epiphany), CAMAGUEY JAZZ promises to be a wonderful experience of historic proportions!
Following up on our wildly successful visit in November 2017, we will travel with the ACOPLADOS LATIN JAZZ PROJECT and other notable Jazz musicians from our community for this unique musical collaboration between our sister cities. In 2015 and again in 2017, Madison’s Afro Peruvian ensemble, GOLPE TIERRA, won the hearts of camagueyanos with their infectious sounds, setting the stage for CAMAGUEY JAZZ.
Please consider this your invitation to join us for CAMAGUEY JAZZ. Reserve your place now as this group is likely to fill up soon.
We will again travel a la carte; that is, in a pay-as-we-go manner. Each traveler will be responsible for booking his/her own flights to Camaguey, which is serviced daily from Ft. Lauderdale and Miami, Florida. MCSCA will make all the reservations at B&Bs (casas particulares) and set up a program that will keep us busy and meet the requirements of Federal REGS.
Estimated costs for this nine-day trip will be in the range of $1,850, give or take depending on your spending habits, single or double accommodations. This estimate includes round trip airfare from Madison to Camaguey, B&B charges, Cuban visa, most meals and entertainment, and a donation to MCSCA for musician stipends, gifts, scheduling and programming in Camaguey.
We will again travel a la carte; that is, in a pay-as-we-go manner. Each traveler will be responsible for booking his/her own flights to Camaguey, which is serviced daily from Ft. Lauderdale and Miami, Florida. MCSCA will make all the reservations at B&Bs (casas particulares) and set up a program that will keep us busy and meet the requirements of Federal REGS.
Estimated costs for this nine-day trip will be in the range of $1,850, give or take depending on your spending habits, single or double accommodations. This estimate includes round trip airfare from Madison to Camaguey, B&B charges, Cuban visa, most meals and entertainment, and a donation to MCSCA for musician stipends, gifts, scheduling and programming in Camaguey.
There is no comparable offer of travel to Cuba that comes near this opportunity for true people to people exchange. Camaguey is Cuba’s third largest city and was designated by UNESCO a World Heritage Site in 2008. The city is steeped in history and tradition and is one of the main cultural powerhouses in the Island. Our program will include walking tours to appreciate the city’s colonial architecture and its history, plus many opportunities to meet with various sectors of Camaguey society.
If you are interested in joining us, please reply to madisoncamaguey@gmail.com with any questions or concerns. We will plan to have our first orientation meeting about our program and general travel to Cuba by early October. At that time we will need a copy of your Passport page with all the information and a check to MCSCA for $400. This donation is fully tax-deductible.
We at MCSCA have endeavored over the past 25 years to allow the people of our communities to get to know and learn from each other. The Music and Cultural Exchanges have proven to be among the most fun and rewarding of our trips. Join us to make the January 2019 edition even better!
I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Ricardo Gonzalez
Tour Leader
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Sustainable Food and Farming in Cuba: Urban Agriculture, Permaculture and Neighborhood Self-Sufficiency
December 12 – December 21
Our global food production and distribution system is in crisis. There is enough food to go around yet billions worldwide go to bed hungry or die from chronic diet-related diseases. Meanwhile, multinational corporations receive exorbitant subsidies from governments to accumulate and degrade farmland, in turn reaping huge profits by displacing millions of rural farmers and then exploiting them as precarious migrant workers in a vast system of control.
This delegation to Cuba, organized by Witness for Peace in conjunction with the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Center in Havana, is designed to build transnational solidarity between US community leaders and their Cuban counterparts who are fighting against and providing concrete alternatives to the agricultural policies and practices that dehumanize us and destroy our lands.
Learn how to restructure our local food systems around the values of justice, sustainability, wellness and equity from Cuban urban farmers, permaculturalists and neighborhood organizers. This delegation of US food justice activists will come to understand Cuba’s cooperative agricultural systems, its advances in environmental justice and childhood nutrition, and the ongoing effects of the US’s criminal blockade.
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Cost: $1,900 + $80 visa + airfare
Application & $150 Deposit Deadline: September 12, 2018
On this delegation, we will:
– visit numerous cooperative urban and organic farms
– understand the importance of land reform and redistribution in Cuban socialism
– view documentaries and speak with experts on just transitions after peak oil
– meet national permaculture organizers
– participate in an environmental popular education workshop
– exchange with Cuban environmental and cooperative historians
– take neighborhood walking tours of urban sustainability projects
– learn about reforestation, green medicine, and homeopathic plants
– explore the synergies between eco-tourism developments and family farming
– talk with chefs and food preservation specialists about local consumption and production
– tour a sustainable development promotion center to learn about environmental organizing
– discuss food sovereignty, access and nutrition with a food policy economist
– plus much, much more!
Cost: $1,900 + $80 visa + airfare
Delegation fee covers all meals, lodging, interpreters, and transportation within Honduras, along with extensive reading and activist tools.
Application & $150 Deposit Deadline: September 12, 2018
Remaining Balance due November 12, 2018.
For application and more details, contact: Melissa Cox, melissa@witnessforpeace.org, 347-461-3611
To apply for a delegation, please fill out the Travel Program Application here.
Cuba: What’s Next?
September 13 – September 22
It’s been 59 years since the Revolution, and Cuba is once again in the midst of another historical change. On April 19, 2018 a new legislature will elect a new president–marking the end of the “Castro era.” Participants will learn about the new Cuban economy, education programs, community organizations, political and social changes. Participants will gain insights into Cuba’s life-long education and national priorities, and historical and current effects of US policies on Cuban’s society.
“A People to People Experience”
Wednesday, April 1, 2015 to Monday, April 13, 2015.
Join the Madison-Camaguey Sister City Association in this exciting trip to Camaguey and Havana, with stops along the way in Remedios, Cayo Santa Maria, Santa Clara and Matanzas. For more information, click here.
Cuba: Past, Present and Future
Saturday, September 13, 2015 to Wednesday, September 23, 2015.
Witness for Peace is organizing a People-to-People licensed trip that allows U.S. citizens to legally travel to Cuba. This is an excellent trip designed for people who are interested on learning about the Cuban people, their education programs, political and social history and visit some of the fascinating colonial landmarks. For More information on this exciting opportunity, click here.
Wisconsin Coalition to Normalize Relations with Cuba 