Alongside Hope joins partners in advocacy, humanitarian response
Everyday life for the average Cuban today starts without electricity, Jose “Pepe” Bringas, general coordinator of the Episcopal Church of Cuba’s Integral-Missionary Development Program (MDP), says from the blockaded island nation.
Blackouts due to cuts in oil imports and deteriorating energy infrastructure mean nights are spent without light or ventilation and with limited access to drinking water, Bringas says. Uncollected garbage piles up on the streets, attracting flies and mosquitoes that carry serious and potentially even life-threatening diseases such as dengue and chikungunya.
The U.S. fuel blockade that began on Jan. 3 has been “extremely tough for most of the Cuban population,” Bringas says, particularly on women, children, the elderly, people with disabilities and those living in rural communities. “The ongoing situation has caused widespread frustration and exhaustion,” he says.
Alongside Hope, the Anglican Church of Canada’s relief and development agency, is working with the Episcopal Church of Cuba (ECC) and other partners to alleviate the current humanitarian crisis. Along with supporting programs to provide electricity and safe water, Alongside Hope is calling on the Canadian government to vocally oppose the fuel blockade and provide more humanitarian support.
Executive director Will Postma says Alongside Hope opposes the embargo and severe sanctions placed on Cuba. “A lot of people are just suffering from really what is unjust hardship,” he says. “They’re not part of the [Cuban] political apparatus. They’re not doing anything other than trying to care for their families. It’s about dignity.”
While hardship and emergencies can bring people closer together, Postma says, reports from partner staff in Cuba to Alongside Hope indicate that resilience is cracking. Lack of food has caused those with land to grow their own vegetables and other crops for sustenance, he says, but many people do not have this option.
Health care is also in a dire state, partners report, with electricity not available for many hospitals and medicine in short supply. Many Cubans depend on medication provided through humanitarian support from Canada and other countries, Postma says—but current aid is barely enough to cover basic needs.
Churches demand action from Ottawa
The Anglican Church of Canada and Alongside Hope have joined numerous other Christian and ecumenical organizations—including KAIROS, the Presbyterian Church in Canada and United Church of Canada—as well as labour unions and activist groups in endorsing a statement calling on the Canadian government to oppose the fuel blockade and U.S. threats of a military attack on Cuba.
“The unlawful U.S. fuel blockade is inflicting mass suffering on the people of Cuba, violating their rights to life and health,” the statement says, adding, “We urgently call on Prime Minister Mark Carney to defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Cuba, cornerstone rights of all states under international law.”
The statement calls on Canada to “publicly oppose and work to stop a U.S. military intervention in Cuba,” to “speak out forcefully against unlawful U.S. coercive measures to withhold fuel and starve the Cuban people,” and to “work more determinedly with the United Nations and other countries to get fuel and other life-sustaining supplies to Cuba without delay.”
Alongside Hope has also sent letters to the Canadian government with other members of the Action by Churches Together (ACT) Alliance, a coalition of churches and faith-based organizations for sustainable development, humanitarian relief and social and ecological justice. Postma says a Global Affairs Canada staff person told him that while the government might not respond to such letters, it reads them and the letters give Ottawa a picture of reality on the ground.
“That was encouraging,” Postma says. But while the Canadian government has given some humanitarian support to Cuba, he says, “Canada has not been as vocal as we feel they need to be” in opposing the fuel embargo.
‘Climate resilience model’ seeks to mitigate crisis using solar power, rainwater
Alongside Hope project coordinator Miguel Moreno says Canada “shares a historic, decades-long ‘special relationship’ with the Cuban church, maintaining steadfast support even when other global ties were severed.” For more than 10 years, Alongside Hope has partnered with the ECC, which Moreo says serves as a vital social safety net in Cuba’s current economic crisis.
The chief means through which the ECC provides social services is the MDP. Supported by Alongside Hope as well as Episcopal Relief and Development, The Episcopal Church’s relief and development agency, the MDP is helping more than 50 communities in the current crisis, Moreno says—delivering solar energy systems, expanding water purification, training farmers to improve crop diversity and providing mental health support services.
Solar energy is a vital part of the MDP response, Moreno says. Benefits include helping to run electric water pumps and UV purification systems that remove water contaminants; creating central hubs for residents to charge phones, radios, flashlights and communal e-tricycles used to transport food and agricultural supplies; and powering refrigeration facilities to preserve perishable food.
Bringas says the MDP has been impacted “not only by the choking measures imposed by the United States government against the country, but also by several misguided economic measures approved by the Cuban government.”
Under the current circumstances, he says, the MDP is prioritizing development of a “climate resilience model” based on solar energy and rainwater to mitigate the crisis. The MDP plans to focus on investing in photovoltaic systems—devices that convert light into electricity using solar power—and training, following their successful 2025 introduction in the Los Arabos district.
Los Arabos residents “are going with their electrical devices during power outages to recharge them in the distributions points, collecting water for the purification system and attending church activities that don’t stop because of lack of electricity,” Bringas says. “It’s amazing that in less than a year we have achieved [these] results.”
Use of rustic cisterns and rainwater collection channels has also allowed many communities to collect water. Bringas points to the El Provenir farm in Bartle, which filled its well and achieved self-sufficiency for a municipal aqueduct that had been out of service for more than a year due to blackouts and breakdowns.
Moreno says Alongside Hope is planning to implement a food assistance initiative in partnership with CARE International, with the goal of delivering emergency food aid to 3,000 vulnerable people across 15 severely food-insecure communities in eastern Cuba.
Appeal for faithful solidarity
Bev Groombridge, an Anglican parishioner at the Church of Our Saviour the Redeemer in Binbrook, Ont., formerly served as chair of the Partners in Mission Committee for the diocese of Niagara when it held a companion relationship with the Episcopal Church of Cuba. Her daughter recently visited Cuba and told her of the desperate conditions there.
“These people are suffering,” Groombridge says. “We’ve got to do something.”
Recalling the words of Jesus that “just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me,” Groombridge adds, “I think every Anglican needs to know how can we help the people in Cuba in a tangible way that will change their lives a little bit so that they aren’t feeling so hopeless.”
Postma describes the work of Alongside Hope and partners in Cuba—like its work in areas such as South Sudan and Haiti—as instances of “faithful solidarity” and highlights the need for Anglicans to “stand with our neighbours in different parts of the world.”
Canadians can show solidarity with Cuba, Moreno says, through financial donations to Alongside Hope, designated giving to Cuban programs, and by praying for Cuban partners and sharing their stories within parishes.
