Friday May 19, Zao MKE Church / 2319 E. Kenwood Boulevard, Milwaukee

Help raise money to send medicines to the embargoed people of Cuba!!
➡️DONATE NOW (tax deductible) directly to IFCO/Pastors for Peace, see: https://ifconews.org/donate/ or text IFCO to 646.859.5344

Potluck dinner w/Cuban music 6-7pm
Program 7-8pm
at
ZAO MKE Church, 2319 E. Kenwood Blvd., Milwaukee 53211
RSVP at our Facebook event and/or share it to invite your friends/family to participate!

JOIN US on May 19 to welcome and send off this year’s Pastors For Peace Friendshipment to Cuba, continuing more than 30 years of support for the people of Cuba, often as acts of civil disobedience. During the same 30 years, the United Nations General Assembly every year has almost unanimously condemned the continued US economic blockade of Cuba, which was tightened during the pandemic and continues today. Cuba is now experiencing severe shortages of food, medicine and fuel, and sharply increased emigration to the U.S. as a result.

The program wiIl feature Gail Walker, Executive Director of Pastors for Peace/IFCO, plus Dr. Alexandra Skeeter of Milwaukee, a recent graduate of Cuba’s international medical school in Havana, which offers tuition free education to qualified students from over 60 nations in the developing world, and to US students of color especially.

Original Afro-Cuban art and other items will be available for a donation.

About IFCO Executive Director Gail Walker
Gail Walker, who grew up in Milwaukee, worked with IFCO from 1987 to 2002 as the Communications Director and co-led the 1988 IFCO delegation to Nicaragua that resulted in the formation of the Pastors for Peace project. Through Pastors for Peace, citizens are offered the opportunity to enact an alternative people-to-people foreign policy rooted in justice and mutual respect. During her early years at IFCO she led a number of delegations to Central America and Cuba and staffed a number of Cuba Friendshipment Caravans. After years of working as a journalist and communications professional in print, video and radio, Gail returned to IFCO as Director in 2011. Under her direction IFCO staff have organized several Cuba Friendshipment Caravans and educational delegations to Cuba. IFCO has also continued to facilitate the process of dozens of US students to study medicine in Cuba under full scholarship and to expand its support for grassroots organizations working for social justice. These US students join others from some 60 developing nations, including Palestine, being trained in Cuba to become doctors.

IFCO was also the fiscal sponsor of the Viva Palestina (“Long Live Palestine”) caravan to bring medical aid to Gaza in 2009. This triggered attacks by some members of the U.S. Congress, a prolonged in-office IRS investigation,  and the politically based removal of IFCO’s tax exempt status, which was eventually reversed on appeal.