Cuba Solidarity Fundraiser

Join us for a night of music, speakers, and food to help raise $7.5k for MEDICC's Light for Life Campaign to provide solar energy to high-risk maternity homes in Havana, Cuba. Free entry. Guests are encouraged to donate $25 via Venmo @SalsaClub with the description "Salsa Club" to help us reach our goal.

Street parking is available and the location is a 10 min walk from Ashby BART station.

Who are we?

We are an anti-imperialist collective made up of UC Berkeley graduate students, undergraduates, and community members in solidarity with Cuba who will be traveling there August 8th-16th.  As citizens of the government directly responsible for the economic blockade that denies millions of Cubans access to medicine, fuel, and other critical life-saving material, we feel a responsibility to intervene. The goal of our delegation to Cuba in August 2026 is to strengthen ties between scholars, researchers, and students in the U.S. and Cuba and foster academic collaboration and exchange between institutions of higher education in our countries. We will deliver urgent material aid in the form of medicine and medical supplies, shelf-stable food, and renewable energy equipment such as solar chargers, solar lights, and solar fans. In particular, we are organizing a fundraiser to raise $7,500 to support the “Light for Life” Campaign of MEDICC, a global health nonprofit. Our intention with both these initiatives is to raise awareness about the energy crisis in Cuba and take concrete action to aid in Cuba’s green transition as it builds towards energy resilience and self-sufficiency.

Why donate to MEDICC?

We are raising money for MEDICC (Medical Education Cooperation with Cuba), an Oakland-based nonprofit dedicated to US-Cuba health collaboration. More specifically, the money will go towards their “Light for Life” campaign, focused on generating solar energy for Cuban high-risk maternity homes. Maternity homes in Cuba provide crucial support for women with high-risk pregnancies to get the medical care that they need. Each Light for Life installation in a maternity home costs about $7,500. This includes the panels, battery, professional installation, and education of the staff on proper use and maintenance. High-risk maternity homes vary in size, with some serving 8-10 women and some as large as 50 women. The women are only there in the last trimester of their pregnancies, so the turnover means that many women are served. Our fundraising efforts will provide long-term energy independence for a maternity home in Havana, Cuba, and support Cuban women in getting optimal care for healthy pregnancies.

Learn more about Cuba's energy crisis!

On January 29, 2026, Trump issued an Executive Order classifying Cuba as an “unusual and extraordinary threat” and announced tariffs on any country doing business with Cuba. This move follows precedent set in 1962, when the US imposed a cruel and unjust embargo on Cuba. In the State Department's words, the embargo's purpose was to “bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow the government.” As a result, Cuba’s economy has lost over 2 trillion dollars, leading to shortages in food, oil, and medicine. International solidarity through oil exports from countries such as Venezuela, Mexico, Russia, and Algeria has been critical in sustaining Cuba's energy and fuel capacity to keep the country functioning despite the embargo. However, US-led regime change in Venezuela and subsequent attacks on shipments of oil to the island have led to the weakening of external support.  This has had a catastrophic impact on the island in what the United Nations has characterized as energy starvation, with severe energy shortages resulting in the collapse of Cuba's power grid, and the complete depletion of its oil and fuel reserves.

Cuba has increasingly turned to solar energy both to survive this moment of accelerated US aggression and to secure its energy sovereignty, which is central to national sovereignty. Solar energy is crucial to unlocking this sovereignty. Cuba’s reliance on oil made it dependent on continuous shipments from Venezuela and Mexico. However, solar infrastructure does not rely on continuous shipments; rather, it relies only on technical maintenance and the occasional resupply of batteries and inverters. This decrease in external dependency will allow Cuba breathing room in its struggle to survive the blockade.

Additionally, the global reliance on fossil fuels, coerced by imperialist monopoly capitalists, has driven an accelerating climate crisis that is destroying precious ecosystems and displacing global south communities. This transition to renewable energy is part of socialist Cuba’s long history of environmentalism, which includes nationwide advances in sustainable farming, the protection of marine ecosystems, and a commitment to combating climate change, as enshrined in its 2019 constitution.

In summary, Cuba’s transition to renewable energy will ease some of the pressure imposed by the imperialist blockade and allow it to modernize its productive forces to protect its sovereignty and further develop its green socialist project.

In the last year, Cuba has increased its imports of Chinese EVs, solar panels, and batteries, and has rapidly begun developing solar parks. At the start of 2025, 4% of Cuba’s energy came from renewables, compared to the expected 17% by the end of 2026. Additionally, citizens have also found ways to integrate solar power into homes and businesses, often through private investments or family assistance. Yet, the cost of solar panels, including transportation and installation, remains a limitation. Additionally, Cuba lacks sufficient battery capacity to store solar energy, and modernizing its aging energy grid to support renewable energy will be a long-term national project. In the present moment, despite grid and battery capacity deficiencies, the country needs an influx of renewable energy sources that can be autonomously distributed as necessary to protect the most vulnerable members of society during this heightened imperialist escalation by the US.