Alexander: "I would have liked to be one of you"

GUANTÁNAMO, Cuba, May 18 (ACN) "I would have liked to be one of you," agronomist Alexander Caldero Mejías admitted to residents of this province who pioneered the Manuel Ascunce Domenech Pedagogical Brigade, an initiative of Commander in Chief Fidel Castro set in motion 50 years ago to the day.

Such were the emotional words that the current director of the Manuel Simón Tames Guerra Agricultural Polytechnic Institute (IPA) told them during their visit to his school, which boasts the triple excellence status in the movement of Urban, Suburban and Family Agriculture program.

Most of them had actually done their 10th grade studies at this IPA in the 1970s and 80s right before they prepared to become teachers, in keeping with Fidel’s idea to launch this Brigade to deal with the growing number of high school students in Cuba.

Enrique Collado Negrin, now in his seventies, was one of the youngsters who volunteered back then. He was visibly moved as he described how he would teach his class in the afternoon what he himself had learned in the morning, and assured the IPA’s current students that he and his old fellow teachers take pride in their school’s achievements.

A provincial bastion of agricultural development in eastern Cuba, this IPA offers courses on agronomy, veterinary zootechnics, forestry and agricultural mechanization, all linked to the highly important food sovereignty program.