BRATTLEBORO — The Vermont-Cuba Solidarity Committee is again collecting used tools to send to Cuba with Pastors for Peace. These tools have been requested and will be used by the Cuban people. They ask that the tools be functional and reasonably clean, but beyond that, almost any tool is of use in Cuba.
The U.S. embargo of Cuba, which has been going on for nearly 50 years, has made it difficult for Cubans to get tools of any sort. Plumbing and electrical supplies are also needed.
Pastors for Peace is an interreligious foundation which each year takes a caravan of people and material aid to Cuba in direct defiance of the U.S. embargo. In the past the caravans have taken medical supplies, household goods, bicycles etc. and this is the second year focusing on tools.
The Caravan takes good used buses, loads them with humanitarian aid, and drives them to Mexico where they are shipped over to Cuba for the contents to be distributed among the Cuban people. This year, their shipment of tools will leave from Springfield, Mass., on July 5, in a bus bound for Cuba.
Here is what Pastors for Peace has to say about the Caravan and the embargo on their web site, www.pastorsforpeace.org:
“Sending material aid a conscious act of nonviolent civil disobedience challenging the unethical 'Trading with the Enemy,' Torricelli, and Helms-Burton Acts. The Caravan is a high-profile act of solidarity with our Cuban brothers and sisters, and is much more than charity. This blockade has sought to isolate Cuba since 1961, violating international laws by denying Cuba access to medicines and other essential goods.
“No matter how much humanitarian aid we collect, it could never remotely assuage the damage that is being done to the Cuban people, especially to Cuban children, by the U.S. blockade. Rather, the act of collecting and sending aid is combined with intentional media and political work that educates the public about the inhumane nature of the blockade and demonstrates to our policymakers and legislators that there is a broad-based international coalition of people of conscience who demand an end to this genocidal policy.”
The local tool collection point is at the back counter in Brown and Roberts Hardware on Main Street. Tools will be accepted until July 2. Look through your closets, basements, and toolboxes, and bring any tools (hand or power) and supplies to the collection box. For more information or for tool pickup, call Dan MacArthur at 802-257-7328.