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17

June
From ICE to Blockades: One Struggle Many Fronts Solidarity, Education & Fundraising Tour to Bring Humanitarian Aid to Cuba 2026
June 17, 2026 Evelyn Andrade Cuba, Events

FROM ICE TO BLOCKADES: ONE STRUGGLE, MANY FRONTS

Solidarity, Education & Fundraising Tour to Bring Humanitarian Aid to Cuba

Saturday, June 27, 2026
4:00 PM – 6:00 PM
University Church
5655 South University Avenue
Chicago, IL 60637 (Hyde Park)

Reception to follow. Snacks and refreshments provided.

RSVP and Donate Here.

The Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America (CRLN) is honored to host IFCO/Pastors for Peace as part of its national solidarity, education, and fundraising tour to bring humanitarian aid to Cuba.

CRLN and IFCO/Pastors for Peace share a decades-long history of mutual collaboration and a deep solidarity commitment to the people of Cuba.

At a time when the United States continues to impose devastating economic sanctions and maintain a decades-long blockade against Cuba, international solidarity remains as urgent as ever. For decades, CRLN has stood with the Cuban people because we believe it is both a moral and political imperative to oppose U.S. intervention, economic coercion, militarization, and neocolonial policies that seek to undermine the sovereignty of nations throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.

The Cuban people have the right to determine their own future free from external interference. We stand with Cuba in the same spirit that Cuba has stood with peoples across the world through international medical brigades, disaster response efforts, educational exchanges, and movements for justice and self-determination. As communities across the United States organize against ICE raids, endless wars, and growing inequality, this event invites us to connect our struggles and strengthen our commitment to international solidarity.

Join us for an evening of political education, dialogue, music, and fundraising in support of humanitarian aid destined for Cuba.

Featured Speakers for our Conversation

Rev. Claudia De la Cruz
Rev. Claudia De la Cruz is a community organizer, theologian, popular educator, and mother with nearly three decades of experience building people power. She previously served as pastor of Iglesia San Romero de Las Américas and co-founded The People’s Forum in New York City. Her work has consistently focused on internationalism, political education, and solidarity among working people across borders.

Dr. Cristina Perez
Dr. Cristina Perez is Associate Professor of Sociology and Associate Professor of Women and Gender Studies at Dominican University. A longtime Cuba solidarity activist, her work examines systems of inequality, gender, and social justice. She has dedicated years to building political education and international solidarity efforts in Chicago and beyond.

Carolina Gaete
Carolina Gaete is a popular educator and community organizer who works in solidarity with residents of West Humboldt Park through Blocks Together. Her work focuses on strengthening political consciousness, leadership development, and community-led campaigns. Rooted in Indigenous and African traditions of liberation and self-determination, she is committed to building collective power from the ground up.

Moderated by Jhonathan F. Gómez
Jhonathan F. Gómez is a human rights defender, educator, artist, documentary photographer, and Co-Director of CRLN. Originally from Guatemala City, he has spent nearly two decades working alongside immigrant, Indigenous, and human rights movements in Guatemala and the United States. His work combines organizing, education, and the arts in pursuit of justice and international solidarity.

Musical Performance

Ramón Marino
Ramón Marino is a singer, songwriter, guitarist, visual artist, and educator originally from Mexico City who has lived in Chicago for more than three decades. A longtime performer of Trova and Nueva Canción, his music has accompanied social justice movements and community struggles throughout Chicago. He will join us for a special live musical performance.

Special Thanks

Blocks Together
Alma de Izote
Party for Socialism and Liberation – Chicago
IFCO/Pastors for Peace

All funds raised will support the delivery of humanitarian aid to Cuba.

Join us. Learn. Organize. Build solidarity.

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10

February
April 5 – Livestream Concert to Send Aid to Cuba!
February 10, 2025 Marilyn McKenna Cuba
As a co-sponsor of the national campaign, CRLN thanks everyone who bought tickets or donated to the February 16 Chicago Concert for Cuba! The concerts in Chicago, New York City, and San Francisco were sold out. Those three concerts have been edited into an amazing Global Concert for Cuba, streaming on Saturday, April 5 at 8 pm(Central), to continue raising funds for urgently needed humanitarian aid for Cuba.

You can watch it on Facebook Live

(https://facebook.com/events/s/concerts-for-cuba-25-the-world/651725113914857/) or

YouTube

(https://www.youtube.com/live/kJ9o2ub9HvM?si=rz9lK-qRRHHUn6ZB)

The campaign for humanitarian aid continues and you can still contribute. All funds will be used for lifesaving aid to be delivered by two organizations with extensive experience getting aid to Cuba: Global Health Partners and People’s Forum.

People’s Forum
Global Health Partners

Chicago Concert for Cuba on February 16, 2025

As a co-sponsor of the national campaign, CRLN thanks everyone who bought tickets or donated to the February 16 Chicago Concert for Cuba! The concerts in Chicago, New York City, and San Francisco were sold out.

photos by Jhonathan F. Gomez
Grupo Cha Cha performing at the Concert for Cuba in Chicago.

Marguerite Horberg, Executive Producer of the Concerts for Cuba, thanks musicians and the audience for their support.

Projecto Libre Super Band performing at the Concert for Cuba in Chicago.

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10

August
Healthcare System: Clients Or Patients?
August 10, 2020 Claudia Lucero Action Alerts, Cuba, Edu. Cuba

Find the Resources and Recap on our last part to the Webinar Series on Daisy Hernandez’s Report Back from the “Healing Our Land, Healing Ourselves” Delegation to Cuba with the Witness for Peace Solidarity Collective in December 2019:

Find the recap on Youtube:

 

Support the ACTION along with this part of the series by signing onto Cuban-American Cyclist Carlos Lazo’s Petition:

https://www.change.org/p/donald-j-trump-levantar-restricciones-econ%C3%B3micas-de-estados-unidos-a-cuba-mientras-dure-el-coronavirus

And keep an eye out for updates on the Chicago City Council Resolution!

Resources to Learn More:

Family Doctors (Slide #12) 

ELAM (Slide #14) 

Cuba’s International Solidarity (Slide #18) 

Cuba American Cyclist Carlos Lazo Action (Slide #20) 

Links to the other parts to the Webinar Series:

  1. US-Cuba Relations, Cooperatives, and Community: https://crln.org/uscubarelationscooperativescommunity/
  2. Urban Economics and Agriculture: https://crln.org/urbaneconomicsandagriculture

For additional resources contact Marilyn McKenna at mmckenna@crln.org or Daisy Hernandez at dhernandez@crln.org

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10

August
U.S. – Cuba Relations, Cooperatives, and Community Recap and Resources
August 10, 2020 Claudia Lucero Cuba

Find the recap on Youtube:

 

Support the ACTION along with this part of the series by signing onto Cuban-American Cyclist Carlos Lazo’s Petition:

https://www.change.org/p/donald-j-trump-levantar-restricciones-econ%C3%B3micas-de-estados-unidos-a-cuba-mientras-dure-el-coronavirus 

Resources to Learn More:

Memorial de Denuncio (Slide 4): 

The Administrations-Obama (Slide 7) 

The Administrations-Trump (Slide 8)

Cuban-American Cyclist Carlos Lazo Petition / Action (Slide 9) · 

Rethinking Solidarity (Slide 10)

Las Terrazas (Slide 13)

Operation Pedro Pan: 

On US Sanctions on Cuba: 

Links to the other parts to the Webinar Series:

  1. Urban Economics and Agriculture: https://crln.org/urbaneconomicsandagriculture
  2. Healthcare System: Clients or Patients?: https://crln.org/healthcaresystemclientsorpatients/

For additional resources contact Marilyn McKenna at mmckenna@crln.org or Daisy Hernandez at dhernandez@crln.org

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24

July
Cuba Webinar “Urban Economics and Agriculture” Recap & Resources
July 24, 2020 Claudia Lucero Action Alerts, Cuba, Edu. Cuba

Find the recap on Youtube:

Take Action to Urge the Administration and Congress to Lift Sanctions! https://www.votervoice.net/PCUSA/Campaigns/73235/Respond

Thanks to the Presbyterian Church (USA) Office of Public Witness for creating this alert.

Resources to learn more:

Excerpt from the 2001 OXFAM report Going Against the Grain about the effects of the Special Period on food supply and agriculture

Read the entire Oxfam report here

Torricelli Act – (H.R.5323 – Cuban Democracy Act of 1992)

Helms Burton Act – (Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (Libertad) Act of 1996)

Summary of changes to U.S. Policy during the Obama Administration created by the Latin American Working Group

2019 Cuba Advocacy Toolkit created by the Latin American Working Group has an excellent timeline from 2014 – 2019 showing the improvements to relations and the Trump rollback. Additional negative policy changes continue to occur.

Links to the next two webinars:

  1. July 30 – US-Cuba Relations, Cooperatives, and Community: https://crln.org/uscubarelationscooperativescommunity/
  2. August 6– Healthcare System: Clients or Patients?: https://crln.org/healthcaresystemclientsorpatients/

For additional resources contact Marilyn McKenna at mmckenna@crln.org or Daisy Hernandez at dhernandez@crln.org

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5

June
Resources on Cuba and COVID-19
June 5, 2020 Claudia Lucero Cuba, Edu. Cuba

Cuba has not failed to demonstrate global solidarity in light of COVID-19 and despite the US’ harmful blockade. Here is a list of resources on the Brigades, Cuba’s healthcare system’s readiness to act, and the measures being taken despite a comparative lack of medical supplies:

[Click on the subject for the link]

[Image provided by CRLN intern Daisy Hernandez from her visit to Cuba through a Delegation, December 2019]

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10

April
Cuban and US Religious Leaders Call for the End of Sanctions
April 10, 2020 Marilyn McKenna Cuba

Joint Statement of the

National Council of the Churches of Christ in USA and the 

Council of Churches of Cuba

La Habana, Cuba – Washington, DC, USA — March 26, 2020

On either side of the river is the tree of life
with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit  each month;
and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.                     

 –Revelation 22:2 NRSV

We are only days away from Easter 2020, the most important celebration of Christianity, and the world is going through a crisis of inestimable implications that affects all edges of life on the planet.

The Council of Churches of Cuba and the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA have worked closely together for many years for the right to life, health, and welfare of all the inhabitants of this world. It is the love of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, that unites us and demands that we raise our prayer to our God for the countries and the families that suffer today because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This suffering intensifies and worsens due to inequalities and injustices; the enormous gaps between the rich and the poor; differences among regions; lack of inclusion; gender injustice and migratory and climate justice problems.

  • We solicit the government of the United States for the immediate lifting of the economic, financial and commercial blockade imposed on Cuba for over 60 years as well as that imposed on other nations.
  • We request the cessation of all manipulation and use of political and economic interests in the face of the current global health crisis, worsened and visualized by the COVID 19 pandemic.
  • We request the international ecumenical movement; all churches and faiths in the United States and in the world; governments; the United Nations and all people of goodwill to come together in a global effort to petition for the immediate lifting of the blockade and the cessation of all sanctions on any country or region. Especially now, these genocidal policies hold back and limit the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • We salute and congratulate the Pastoral Letter of the World Council of Churches on March 18; the Joint Statement of the ACT Alliance and Religions for Peace on March 26; especially the Call of Church World Service on March 24 in relation to the blockade and the sanctions. Other initiatives and efforts are coming into being as a global campaign in favor of collaboration, unity, and peace in the search for appropriate responses and solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic and world crisis.

We are grateful for the thousands of Cuban doctors, nurses, and healthcare professionals who are selflessly providing lifesaving assistance throughout the world.  Therefore, it is imperative the blockade and coercive sanctions are lifted so they would be able to save lives during the pandemic.

We know that goodwill between Cubans and Americans will help the entire world in this moment.  We pray our call will be heard.

Jim Winkler
General Secretary and President
National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA

Rev. Antonio Santana Hernandez
President
Council of Churches in Cuba

Rev. Joel Ortega Dopico
Executive Secretary
Council of Churches in Cuba

Rev. Dr. John Dorhauer
Governing Board Chair
National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA

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19

July
“From Havana To Harvard: Producer Pablo D. Herrera Veitia On Connecting Cuba To The U.S. Through Hip-Hop”
July 19, 2019 Claudia Lucero Cuba, Edu. Cuba

“From Havana To Harvard: Producer Pablo D. Herrera Veitia On Connecting Cuba To The U.S. Through Hip-Hop”

Herrera Veitia is a known pioneer of Afro-Cuban hip-hop, who has brought noteworthy artists to the island for collaboration. Veitia has dedicated much work to production and major-international hip-hop festivals while connecting the work to academia. He is working on a doctorate in social anthropology. His dissertation brings to light how Havana’s distinct sounds, music and loudness are a form of citizenship.

Because Americans are not as concerned with Afro-Cuban hip-hop as Cubans are with American hip-hop, his lyrics confront race and race relations in Cuba and celebrates the genre’s overall contribution to hip-hop culture. “Veitia’s life and work as an artist speaks to the resistance and resilience of U.S. and Cuban musical and social connections both in the past and present, despite political and economic restrictions. “The connections that we have as people [through music] is above and beyond politics,” he says.”

Read about how political and social consciousness and movements drove American and Afro-Cuban artists alike. The rappers in both countries voice parallel social issues. Cuba’s proximity to the U.S. provided Cuban rap artists with access to hip-hop played on Miami radio stations, through word of mouth, and through efforts of community hip-hop fanatics at house and street parties.

 https://www.wbur.org/artery/2019/06/06/havana-harvard-hip-hop-pablo-d-herrera-veitia
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The Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America (CRLN).

  • Tel: +773-293-2964
  • Fax: +773-293-3677
  • Email: crln@crln.org