A tour at work being undertaken by the Malecón and Extramuros Investment Group and the Puerto Carenas Construction Company attracted the family of the prominent Cuban intellectual and revolutionary, who, guided by the Deputy Director of the OHCH, Perla Rosales Aguirreurreta, learned about the details of the civil work and the future that awaits the school once it is completed in 20201.

The school will have 20classrooms, a library, a theater with a capacity of sixty people, a meeting room, for computer labs, five chairs for the specialties, a direction area, eight restrooms and a cafeteria for the exclusive use of the facility staff.

To date, the municipality did not have a school at this level. Previously, the multifunctional building Manzana de Gómez, which is currently a Hotel, housed schools of different grades that had to be relocated to the surrounding area and to the new buildings of this type created by the Office of the Historian, such as the Mendive School in Prado. The students who studied there also had to be relocated to other municipalities of the capital.

“When the hygienic and sanitary conditions allow the opening of the school year, two specialties will be studied here, Accounting and Library and Information Management, with students from Old Havana and Centro Habana. Initially, 126 students will be enrolled in the first and second years of both majors”, said Yorniel Garcia, municipal director of Education in Old Havana, to Havana Radio.

Other careers such as Beauty Services, Carpentry and Human Capital Management may be incorporated to the center in stages, as enrollment and the distribution of classrooms may allow.

The city commitment is to finish the civil intervention before September, declared the investors. The completion of the scenery and furniture of the second level theater, the rectification of details of the third level, aesthetic finishes and the completion of the ground floor with the polishing of the exterior granite, painting of the façade , the floor of the interior yard and the install of an interior stained glass window as a skylight. The teachers will also be involved in the finishing and cleaning work and the installation of the labs equipment and televisions, which have been provided by MINED.

The unstoppable work

The Monte 51 building was handed over to the Office of the Historian of Havana practically in ruins. The mezzanines- of the more than the 4 levels it has-were in a high level of precariousness and were completely restored, preserving only the original façade and some internal elements such as staircases and halls.

A major delay was the lack of access to steel in national territory to secure the structure, which was previously made of wooden beams. They had to be imported by the Historian’s Office. Cases of Covid-19 infection among the workers on the construction site was another reason for the delay, but at the first opportunity for recovery, the building was once again filled with workers.

In total, the school has taken six years to be completed, at a time when the school has had to face a severe financial crisis, and thanks to enormous efforts, the work was not stopped.

Our only regret is that Eusebio is not with us to inaugurate the school”, said María Isabel Rodríguez, head of the Malecón and Extramuros Investment Group.

Eusebio was watching over the progress of the work, every little detail, every frame that was put in place, every new worker joining the team. I don’t know how he did it. I feel that his presence will be present among us. We have many responsibilities that he left us pending, so we will continue working together, as if he were with us every day.

This weekend the school gate will be exposed so that the passers-by on Monte and Zulueta Streets can admire the work done.

Once the Investment Group had been delivered the project to the Education Ministry for a final details check over, it will be involved in a new project: the raising of a Primary School at the annexed building by Zulueta Street, in order to fulfill the educational environment on disposal of children and teenagers of the surrounding municipalities.

The Office of the Historian has already intervened and inaugurated seven schools in the municipality, expressed the Deputy Director of the Office of the Historian, such as “Marianao Martí”, “Manuel María de Mendive”, “Camilo Cienfuegos”, “Angela Landa” Schools among others, list to which it will be added the “Carlos Rafael Rodríguez” School. The Office of the Historian’s commitment includes the annual maintenance of this centers that will be carry out from July to August when kids are on vacations.

This project’s financing was particularly thanks to a found provided by the Saudi Arabian Embassy to the Office of the City Historian. “A noble credit for the central government to be paid in 25 years and at 2% interest, destined to social projects such as this one, housing, among others. Thanks to that 26 million dollars credit e will be working for many years, explained Perla Rosales. The intended budget for this intervention was about 20 million Cuban pesos that covered all the civil work in the facility and furnishing.

Keeping alive and current a thinking

In the meeting held this Monday August 23rd, it came up the idea of including a small museum for the students to get to know Carlos Rafael’s intellectual legacy, in all the extension of his prolific work, linked as much possible to professional guidance.

The Dirección Adjunta de la Oficina del Historiador, Puerto Carena Investment’s team, Programa Cultural, Dirección Municipal de Educación of the municipality, other institutions ‘representatives and organism linked to the OHCH, and the intellectual’s family members shared opinions about how to get a better approach to the center’s beneficiaries to the man on whose honor is been raised this homage in the shape of a school. 

Carlos Rafael Rodríguez had a visionary, forwarded thinking to his time, pointed out the Director of the Cultural Program Katia Cárdenas, who also suggested the integration of the students of the center to programs of institutions such as a+ space for teenagers that has the aim of working precisely with groups of adolescents.

The repercussion that will have Monte 51 after its inauguration responds to a debt of affection and admiration that the Historian of the City Office have with a man who dedicated his life to fight for his ideals and the construction of socialism en different positions in the Government and as leader of the Communist Party of Cuba. Carlos Rafael Rodríguez and Emilio Roig de Leuchsenring had also a prolific friendship, based on collaboration and respect of who admire and endorse the work of the other.

In an epistolary exchange dated from 1993, in commemoration of the 80th birthday of the economist, a young Eusebio Leal Spengler, already declared Historian of the City wrote him: This letters will mixed up among others congratulation messages on your 80th birthday, but in this particular case the message carries a profound feeling of gratitude for your support and advices during those time in which it blossomed the seed planted by Emilito. On behalf of María we congrats you not only for the years but for the work gathered that will not be forgotten.

Carlos Rafael would answer to this letter few days later: Dear Eusebio: Your words cannot be missed at all. Your congratulations will always be singular. I send you all my gratitude for the loyalty to Emilio’s work and the continuity of his work, developed in an amazing deadlines. Thanks, and a hug from…Carlos Rafael.

Taken from Habana Radio

Photo: Nestor Martí