What We Do

Our one-day conference brought together representatives from the municipalities of Bayamo, Manzanillo and Bartolomé Masó with the visitors from the UK. It was held in El Manegua, a restaurant that practises inclusive employment.

After a welcome from Par Kumaraswami and Diurkis Madrigal, we began the day in small groups discussing what we each understand by cultures of participation. In the next session, we shared insights about our ways of working. The UK team presented three different ways of co-creating training and capacity-building, taken from practical projects undertaken by Sonali Shah, Stephen Connolly and Rosi Smith. The Cuban team, led by Diurkis, then went on to set out the unique structure of Cuba’s disability organisations and how they are embedded into every level of community participation and decision-making. After eating together, disabled artisans and small business people demonstrated their skills and artists and performers from the different municipalities displayed their talents in singing, music, mime and dance. We ended the day by sharing our evaluations of the event and our hopes for the rest of the project.