Every humanitarian organization has its work cut out. There is funding to obtain, aid to distribute, and logistics to coordinate. Being a humanitarian organization to Cuba however, brings even more obstacles and challenges. Almost every day I get phone calls from people, well-intending people, who want to help Cuba, but either don’t know where to begin, or are trying to go about it in a way that ultimately will not end well.

The biggest problems associated with working in Cuba boils down to the governments, both Cuban and American, who have imposed many restric-tions on NGOs like trying to assist the Cuban people. There is currently an embargo between the U.S. and Cuba. Even though has obtained a special license to engage in humanitarian related travel and transfer of humanitarian aid to Cuba, there are still many obstacles and limi-tations to what we can do. For example, let’s say a grocery store wants to donate baby food to families in Cuba who don’t have anything. The process would begin by submitting a request to the U.S. Government for a specific commerce license to send the baby food to Cuba. This is a tedious and time consuming process, one which does not have a guaranteed out-come. If this license is granted, we cannot simply send all the baby food down. There are weight restrictions, 44 lbs per person. Anything over 44lbs and the traveler must pay $2 per pound for any overage. As you can imagine this gets expensive quick. Even if we got funding to pay for the overage costs, we would still have to deal with the Cuban government.

Because of the nature of Cuba’s communist government, to send humanitar-ian aid to the country is considered an affront to their ability to provide for their own people. If, as our humanitarian aid couriers pass through the Cuban airport, suitcases full of baby food are opened by the customs agents, it could be either confiscated, or the passenger would be followed and the Cubans who received the aid may get questioned,  or in more serious trou-ble. Of course this is a scenario assumes there’s a willing donor, willing cour-iers and a reputable ministry in Cuba. Finding all three of these things is another struggle in getting aid to Cuba.

God is doing a lot of exciting things in Cuba, but in order to help those who need it most in this tight-lipped communist country, we need to spread know-ledge of how and when to send humanitarian aid  intelligently. Ultimately there is nothing too hard for my God, but let’s be wise as serpents and gentle as doves.

Vanessa Fernandez