Cuba Fights Exclusion with Culture
Cuban President Fidel Castro stressed that culture must be expanded as an antidote to economic and social marginalization, a scourge that pushes millions of people off the map and in Cuba is disappearing with a state program called the Battle of Ideas.

At a graduation of more than 3,000 art teachers on Friday night in Havana, he said the program already has palpable results here in spite of the US blockade of Cuba, and underlined the need to expand general education to make Cubans one of the most informed people on the planet.

He mentioned the fact that among those still studying in the novel art instructors program, plus those already graduated, the country has more than 20,000 young people ready to teach the arts.

More than half the new instructors are women and many come from underprivileged backgrounds, including people with physical disabilities, the blind, deaf and mute.

In it´s goal of providing education for all, he said the national plan consists of providing one computer for every 15 students.

Fidel Castro concluded his speech to the new cultural educators with a reminder: for human beings, anything is possible.