by Marcelo Vieta
The Bullet (Canada) Socialist Project E-Bulletin No. 667 July 18, 2012
http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/667.php#continue
[In 2011, I made two trips to Cuba to study the new co- operatives. In June I was kindly invited by Camila Piñeiro Harnecker, a professor at the University of Havana and one of the country's leading experts on its co-operative movement, to participate in two conferences. In December, Wendy Holm (Canadian agronomist and co-operative facilitator working in Cuba for the last dozen years) extended an invitation to participate in the "Walking the Walk: Cuba's path to a more co-operative and sustainable economy" workshops, again in Havana. Both trips had international guests share experiences and knowledge of the co-operative organizational model with our Cuban hosts. The backdrop was, on both occasions, the recently proposed economic reforms coming out of los nuevos lineamientos (the new guidelines) of the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, completed and released on April 18, 2011.