Social Indiscipline, a Challenge for Cuban Society

HAVANA, Cuba, Nov 13 (acn) Social indiscipline is at the center of joint actions in today´s Cuba in order to rescue social values deeply damaged over the past years as it shows in everyday life, with the youth at the center of educative initiatives.

The term social indiscipline describes a large group of misbehaviors and inappropriate actions with different motivations that run against social order, traditions and culture, which inflict damage to the social infrastructure and the economy as well.

For instance, the ACN bureau in south central Cienfuegos city today reports that the damage caused to state-owned transportation equipment like buses has inflicted economic damage calculated at over 6 thousand pesos (similar in dollars) given the need for repairs, replacement of parts like damaged bus seats and windows, handles and doors.

But the damage is not only assessed by the cost of the replacements, but also by the time the equipment is out of operations, according to Juan Carlos Sanchez Otero, an official with the Provincial Transportation Company in Cienfuegos quoted by the ACN bureau.

Although the transport equipment comes along with spare parts, special adhesive materials and other elements to mount glass windows, their cost at the national and international markets is quite high, the official explained.

Most damage is reported during the overnight night service, which was cancelled due to the large number of these actions, which also put in risk the integrity of the driver, said Sanchez, who added that during the July-August holidays they reported 25 cases of social indiscipline in the sector despite strategies to increase the service for beach areas, for example.

Each bus collects over 500 Cuban pesos a day during its service, so any stoppage due to these causes inflicts economic damage and affects the transportation of citizens, said Duniesky Gutierrez, who heads the Urban Bus Transportation Unit in Cienfuegos.

And this problem reported in Cienfuegos also takes place in other provinces, along with other inappropriate behaviors affecting other sectors like the vandalism of public telephone equipment, graffiti over walls and buses, destruction of garbage containers, violations of traffic or road code and urban regulations, high noise in late hours or even on public transportation vehicles, among others that have been well identified by local authorizes.

With this in mind, Cuban society is taking actions supported by community organizations, the federation of Cuban Women and educational centers in an effort to raise awareness on the need to rescue the good traditions of the Cuban people and above all the values that a nation has created over the years, under a system that guarantees the enjoyment of social rights for all.