Youth Land on Island of Youth

Young Cubans from across the country have gone to Cuba's hurricane-damaged satellite municipality to volunteer in recovery efforts. They are rebuilding domestic tourist infrastructure on exotic black sand beaches and laboring in the agricultural sector for a period of six to twelve months. Similarly, thirty-five hundred volunteers have deployed to Piñar del Rio province to resuscitate the infrastructure of the tobacco industry.

Intensive harvests will be necessary for Cuba to alleviate the food scarcity inflicted by the hurricanes and boost production for export.

Teenagers customarily help out in an annual rite of picking crops for a month or two during the summer. This is a way for them to contribute in exchange for the free education they receive, and an opportunity to get to know another part of their country. Its especially useful for insular urban youth to comprehend the rural nature of a large part of the island.

Sending brigades of younger generations to serve their nation in tackling specific issues is a tradition. The current campaign is reminiscent of the 1961 literacy mission in which 100,000 educated urban teenagers flocked to the countryside and nearly disappeared all illiteracy. That campaign showed the privileged firsthand the impoverish conditions in which the rest of the country lived, making them more amenable to a revolutionary socialist program. It also served to make every citizen capable of reading propaganda.