Neighborhood Award for Delegate Mario

Colón – Mario Herrera Hernández has lived attentive to his neighbors, to help them, to manage their problems, and he has done so for somewhat more than half a century, despite ingratitudes, because in some home, in some voter, satisfactions always flourish, he notes.

Nothing stops the delegate of district 25 of the Sur People’s Council — helping, understanding how much one owes to those who elect him, marks the existence of a man for whom people continue to bet, as if in each People’s Power election in that demarcation only Mario could represent them.

And it has been so for half a century, even before, because this man with five decades in the basic structure of the Cuban government system is a founder of these bodies and had the honor of being so since 1974, when Matanzas became the laboratory of what was called the People’s Power Experience.

«Since then I have maintained a work system of linkage with the people and concern for the neighbors. I have dedicated my life to this task,» he states whenever he is asked.

«Without this system of Government, the country would not have achieved many of its accomplishments, born of popular participation. The delegate is a strength and a fundamental link in the development of all sectors,» he confessed.

«The work of People’s Power has been in a constant process of improvement. It never stagnated. At the beginning we received a bundle of documents, and later the reports of the assemblies were more concise, which gives the opportunity to discuss and intervene,» he declared last year to Juventud Rebelde.

For Mario, being a delegate is an unforgettable course for life. «I want to continue in the battle; I only ask for health to continue as a servant of the people.»

As a just reverence for his performance, the National Secretariat of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution has just presented him with the Neighborhood Award, and his joy was greater for receiving the laurel from the hands of Gerardo Hernández Nordelo, the national coordinator.

The Matanzas native was part of the representation of founders, delegates, and outstanding workers of People’s Power honored on October 31 with the Medal for the Defense of the Homeland and the Unity of the Neighborhood, the August 23 distinction, the Neighborhood Award, the special recognition for the 50th Anniversary of People’s Power, among other distinctions.

The ceremony took place at the National Capitol, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the constitution of the municipal assemblies of People’s Power. And there was Mario as a certainty of the many grateful for his work.

Cover Photo: A deserved honor for the founding delegate of People’s Power in Colón. Photo: Taken from the Facebook page of the National Assembly of Cuba.