The Embassy of Cuba and the Government of Belize today held a farewell ceremony for thirteen young Belizeans travelling to Cuba to pursue studies in medicine, dentistry and health technologies as part of the CUBA – CARICOM program through which Cuba provides scholarships to citizens of its sister nations in CARICOM. The ceremony was hosted at the Embassy of Cuba in Belize City where Cuba’s Ambassador to Belize, Lissette Perez Perez, spoke to the media.
Lissette Perez Perez – Cuba’s Ambassador to Belize
“They will be in Cuba for almost six years to study. This is a project that we have, not only with Belize, with other CARICOM members. We offer scholarships to each CARICOM member for many years. This is an idea of the late Commander in Chief Fidel Castro. After the Hurricane affected in late 90’s Central America and Caribbean, we considered at that time, because of big loss of human beings because of the hurricane, to create a project to help people in humble areas, in rural areas in all the Caribbean and Central America. That is why there is the cooperation not only through our medical brigades in the countries, there is also the Escuela Latinoamericana de Medicina, ELAN. This is a project that from the beginning of the 20’s and had been graduating a lot of persons. Already we have graduated over 28,000 doctors, not only from the region, from Africa, Asia. I think that is a Cuban contribution in the South South cooperation.”
Currently more than sixty Belizeans are studying in Cuba at the Latin American School of Medicine through a project created by the late Cuban leader Fidel Castro almost twenty years ago.
(From Love FM)