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Caravan for Cuba Members to Stop in Newark

On Saturday, July 11, Pacem in Terris and the Social Concerns Committee of the New Ark United Church of Christ will be receiving a few members of the 20^th US-Cuba Friendshipment Caravan for Cuba, sponsored by Pastors for Peace at 11:30 a.m. at the New Ark United Church of Christ, 300 E. Main Street, Newark, DE 19711. Sophie Ziner, one of the caravan members will explain the purpose and mission of the caravan to Cuba, as well as the signs of hope for changes in the US policy towards Cuba. We are inviting members of the public to come and hear Sophie briefly at the church and over lunch at a nearby restaurant. They will have left Philadelphia that morning and will be making their way to Richmond, VA after lunch. They will be driving a school bus that is part of the Friendshipment Caravan.

Sophie Ziner is a 25 year-old social justice activist from Vancouver Island, British Columbia. In Vancouver she was deeply involved in both Cuba solidarity work and campaigning against the war and occupation in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine. She has been on four caravans to Cuba and has been a speaker on the last three. She features prominently in the audio-slide show about the 2006 caravan on their website. Sophie now lives in Connecticut.

Sophie Ziner and the other persons coming to Delaware are part of the effort coordinated by the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization/Pastors for Peace, to deliver humanitarian aid to the Cuban people. Between July 3 and July 17, 2009 the Friendshipment Caravans will travel on 15 different routes, visiting 130 US and Canadian cities, collecting building supplies and tools for hurricane reconstruction, as well as medical, educational, and cultural supplies. Caravan participants are giving educational presentations in each city where they stop during their travel in school buses, trucks, and cars to Cuba via Mexico. Following a Participant Orientation in Texas from July 18 – July 22, they will cross the U.S.–Mexico border on July 22 - 23. They are not requesting U.S. Treasury Department licenses as a collective challenge to the blockade and travel ban, because they do not cede the right to any government to license their consciences. They are asking the U.S. government to allow all US citizens to be free to travel to Cuba, whether for educational purposes, tourism, business, cultural , scientific or religious exchange. They also want normal trading relations resumed, so that Cuba can purchase the goods it needs to develop its economy and rebuild after the hurricanes, and so that the US can purchase the products that Cuba specializes in such as a number of unique life-saving vaccines. The material aid they are bringing will be loaded onto a cargo ship in Tampico, Mexico and members of the Caravan will fly from Tampico to Havana and will spend from July 24 – August 1 in Cuba visiting hospitals, schools, and a range of social projects in Havana, hearing from important Cuban speakers, and meeting people via cultural activities. The supplies that they bring with them are distributed through the Martin Luther King Interfaith Center, a non-governmental organization that is affiliated with the World Council of Churches. They will then fly back to Mexico and cross the Texas border on August 3, bringing with them a symbolic donation of goods that Cuba would like to trade with the U.S. people.

Part of the mission of the Pastors for Peace 20^th Friendshipment Caravan to Cuba is to make the Americans aware of the need for our country to normalize relations with Cuba, to end the blockade, to resume trade relations and cultural exchanges between our countries.

For more information about this event, please call the Pacem in Terris office at 302-656-2721.