Connect Cuba campaign will send information to the island

Posted on Saturday, 11.02.13

Connect Cuba campaign will send information to the island
BY JUAN O. TAMAYO
JTAMAYO@ELNUEVOHERALD.COM

Cuban singers Gloria Estefan and Willy Chirino are backing a campaign to
deliver "the Internet without the Internet" to the island — USB drives,
DVDs, CDs and other memory formats loaded with uncensored information.

The "Connect Cuba" campaign will also feature an online petition urging
Havana to provide citizens with unabridged and affordable access to the
Internet, according to the Miami-based Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba.

"We want to empower the people in Cuba," said Tony Costa, a member of
the board of directors and former president of the nonprofit foundation.

The foundation raised $35,000 in 35 days through a crowd-funding request
on Indiegogo.com to pay for the initial costs of the campaign such as
the Web page and designs, said José Luís Martínez, the foundation's
communications director.

Martinez said the largely Web-based campaign will use all social
platforms and media to publicize the petition and highlight Cuba's rate
of Internet access — one of the lowest in the Western Hemisphere — and
its tight censorship of the Web.

"Connect Cuba" also will collect donations of money and equipment to
send information to the island on USB flash drives and digital discs
carried by volunteers.

Computers and smartphones also will be sent to the country, Martinez said.

He said Cubans pass around information in what Havana blogger Yoani
Sánchez has called "the Internet without the Internet." Sanchez
requested such assistance for civil society on the island when she
visited Miami in April.

The Cuban government tightly controls the Web on the island. Access is
expensive or limited to government officials and facilities. Many pages
created by the opposition are blocked, and smartphones cannot connect to
the Internet.

The United Nations recognized access to the Web as a human right in
2011, and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg launched a program in August,
Internet.org, to bring the Internet "to the two-thirds of the world's
population that doesn't have it."

Estefan and Chirino have recorded short videos urging support for the
"Connect Cuba" campaign, and so have two Cuban dissidents who visited
Miami recently — Ladies in White leader Berta Soler and Baptist Pastor
Mario Felix Lleonart Barroso.

Ana Villafañe, of Cuban and Salvadoran descent, will record a specially
written song that Costa said he hopes turns into the Cuban version of We
Are the World, the hit song written in 1985 for the USA for Africa charity.

"Connect Cuba" will have a three- to four-minute introductory video
explaining its goals, Martinez said, and its logo will be the symbol for
a Wi-Fi antenna, rendered in the red, white and blue colors of the Cuban
flag.

The campaign will be unveiled Nov. 8 during the foundation's annual
fundraiser, Tropical Nights, and will be officially launched a few weeks
later after all the digital and other pieces are in place.

The Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba received a $3.4 million,
three-year grant in 2011 from the U.S. Agency for International
Development to support Cuban civil society, and separately raises more
than $600,000 a year from private donors. None of the USAID money will
be used for the Connect Cuba campaign, Costa said.

The foundation was established by members of the Cuban American National
Foundation in 1992 to work with dissidents and human-rights groups on
the island. The two foundations are officially separate.

Source: "Connect Cuba campaign will send information to the island -
Cuba - MiamiHerald.com" -
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/11/02/3728250/connect-cuba-campaign-will-send.html#storylink=misearch