After over 20 years, DVV International will terminate its work in Cuba at the end of 2024. An important focal point in the last few years was the topic of community-based environmental education. In Havana, at a closing conference, the work of DVV International and its partners was praised and featured on the Cubavision television station.
DVV International started its cooperation in Cuba with the Cuban Teachers Association (Asociación de Pedagogos de Cuba) in 2002. The partner organisation initially supported the professionalisation of adult educators and teaching staff and introduced new participative learning methods – inspired by the liberation pedagogue Paolo Freire, who developed a concept of problem-formulating education in the social environment of people bereft of education and living in poverty.
As time went by, DVV International established new partnerships from their regional headquarters in Mexico with, among others, the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment, the Félix Varela Centre, CIERIC (Centro de Intercambio y Referencia-Iniciativas Comunitarias), and the state-sponsored working group GTE-BH (Grupo de Trabajo Estatal Bahía de la Habana).
DVV International supported the implementation of adult education diploma courses of study at the academic level, such as the Masters in Community Social Education, which was recognised by the University of Pedagogical Sciences.
In 2017 the Cuban government adopted the Life Mission Plan (Plan Tarea Vida) to combat climate change. Student and community environmental work plays a consequential role in its fight against climate catastrophe. DVV International supported this national plan with a select choice of partners and strategic alliances. For six years, in four of the communities in the neighbourhood of Havana Bay, environmental political activities were developed and concrete environmental projects were carried out in pilot centres with the communities. In addition, a range of materials such as methodological instructions, environmental glossaries and handbooks for the participatory creation of local ‘green maps’ have been developed.
With this as background, a further Masters study programme based on Curriculum globALE – supplemented with environmentally specific modules – was introduced in Havana. With this as its foundation, a new Curriculum ambientALE will be developed in 2025, guided by the DVV International office in Mexico.
Closing conference in Havana
The most important results and Best Practice examples of the work done were presented and discussed by DVV International and its partners at the closing conference in Havana in September 2024. Among the guests were members of the partner organisations, delegates from the ministries, representatives of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the German Embassy in Cuba. The Cuban TV station Cubavision transmitted an hour-long telecast about the conference.
Even though the work of DVV International has concluded, Cuba remains a strategic partner in the regional context. The educational material as well as the method and environmental handbooks that were developed in the preceding years will remain available in the adult education centres as reference material. Curriculum ambientALE will be included in the DVV International toolbox and come into play in other project countries. In addition, in 2025, a knowledge-transfer webinar with our partners in the region of Central America will be taking place in order to transmit our experiences from our work in Cuba.
More information
Interview about the conference with DVV International and Proyecto Lazos (in Spanish)
You can find even more information about our work in Cuba at the regional website (in Spanish)
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