The human stature of a program to care.

Getting the subjective out of the way is the best way to help this program continue to grow. Caring for a woman, family or guardian with problems, does not admit delays.

Cuba keeps at the center of its government agenda the attention to demographic dynamics, a policy based on stimulating births and fertility, and this is making headway, despite the economic complexities of a country of proven human stature.

And precisely one of the programs that has a direct impact on this policy is related to the designation of financing for mothers, fathers or legal guardians who have three or more children under 17 years of age in their care, for the construction, rehabilitation, expansion or remodeling of their homes.

In light of these times of shortages, resource limitations and an energy crisis that extinguishes any intention of progress, one wonders if this program is viable today.

The answer is offered by a State that has placed the protection of individuals, families, households and communities in conditions of vulnerability among the ten objectives that define the projections of the Economy and Budget plan for 2025.

Although this alone solves the viability of this beautiful program, in the most practical sense, it would be necessary to analyze how its intention collides with the wall of deep shortage of steel, cement and even aggregates to undertake the construction of houses, expand or repair them.

According to data published on the Cuban government’s Facebook page, last year only 416 of the 63,000 households with three or more children in the country received housing. For sure, the province of Matanzas does not escape this reality.

And although the program includes aspects such as the incorporation to study, employment, temporary social assistance benefits and the distribution of resources, there is no doubt about the scope of the construction of houses and what it means for the family in terms of emotional stability and quality of life.

It would be necessary to do everything possible to continue taking care, from the foundations, of a program that demands, together with construction materials, an increasingly efficient management so that no woman in a vulnerable situation deepens her needs.

The search for alliances between state-owned companies and new economic actors is essential to build proposals that help to offer a safer outlook for those who are waiting for the improvement of their houses or for a home to alleviate their existence.

The agencies involved, including the Ministry of Public Health, the Ministry of Construction and the Ministry of Labor and Social Security (MTSS), as well as the mass organizations, must be very careful.

Recent reports presented to the National Assembly of People’s Power associate the main problems of the program to the delays in approving the cases that will benefit from the allocated budgets.

And it is true, in Matanzas there are mothers with this status unidentified and others insufficiently attended.

Getting the subjective out of the way is the best way to help this program continue to grow. Attention to a woman, family or guardian with problems does not admit delays.

Photo: Taken from Girón

Written by Eva Luna Acosta Armiñán.