Kingston, 15 August 2025. The Cuban government, at the proposal of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP), through Presidential Decree No. 1039 of 10 July 2025 of the President of the Republic of Cuba, awarded the Medal of Friendship to the Right Honourable Portia Simpson Miller, former Prime Minister of Jamaica.
The award recognises the deep and historic bonds of friendship and cooperation that united Portia with the Cuban people, which began during her time as a youth leader in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
It also recognises the work she carried out during her term as Prime Minister, focused on strengthening bilateral ties with Cuba in areas such as health, education and sports, as well as her firm call for the lifting of the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the government of the United States of America against the Greater Antilles.
This recognition comes in the context of a journey of special significance for the Cuban people, celebrating the 99th anniversary of the birth of the leader of the Cuban Revolution, Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, whom Portia called her ‘brother and friend’ and in whose honour she inaugurated the Fidel Castro Campus at Anchovy Secondary School in Saint James (one of the educational centres donated by Cuba to the brotherly Jamaican people) in September 2015.