African culture taught to children in Cuban schools

SANTIAGO DE CUBA, Cuba, Apr 10 (ACN) With the project My Black Grandfather, the Centro Cultural Africano Fernando Ortiz (CCAFO) promotes children’s learning about African influences in Cuba and communication with their contemporaries in that continent.

The initiative is based on painting and card contests, which are awarded each year at the International Conference on African and African-American Culture, organized by CCAFO, located in this southeastern city.

According to Maria Bergues, an international relations specialist at the institution, the project has had remarkable results; in 2017, when the activities were dedicated to Mali, the children were so motivated that they created the Club of Friends of Mali.

A direct link was created between the pioneers, the parents, the center and the Malian embassy, as the ambassador fell in love with the work of the children, Bergues said.

The awarded letters are sent by diplomats to African schools and the children there respond to those here, he said.

Bergues, a teacher by profession, said that schoolchildren from Santiago choose the country and study about it for a year.

The aim is to instill in them a broad vision of Africa, without stereotypes, which strengthens values such as solidarity and patriotism; as they learn more about their roots, they will become more patriotic and grow up without feelings of racial discrimination, said the CCAFO expert.

As in the poem Ballad of my two grandparents, by Nicolás Guillén, we do not deny the Spanish presence, the important thing is that the children feel proud of being Cuban, he stressed.

Marta Cordiés, director of the CCAFO, commented that the initiative is intended to expand, since it is being developed so far only in the Clodomira Acosta primary school, in the former bourgeois district of Vista Alegre.

In 2019 we must open a circle of interest in the Provincial Palace of Pioneers to link as many children as possible, she said.

The idea affects curricular content, in which infants receive insufficient information about our roots, he said.

In 2018, the competitions are dedicated to Burkina Faso and are part of the programme of the XVlI International Conference on African and Afro-American Culture, which will be held in this city from 11 to 16 November.

Chief-Editor Language Department

Cuban News Agency