Common Ground Education & Travel Services

Common Ground is a leading expert in exchanges with Cuba. They organize professional research trips for people in a wide range of fields, relying on their many years of contacts and expert colleagues in Cuba. They also organize trips for individuals eligible for travel under the U.S. regulations, and they assist organizations, universities, and other institutions with trips to Cuba. Merri Ansara is director and founder of Common Ground. She traveled and worked in Cuba beginning in 1969 as a journalist, translator, urban planner and teacher.

Common Ground Education and Travel Services is an OFAC licensed Travel Service Provider.

Scheduled Tours in Cuba

Typical Itinerary, participants can expect to experience the following:

• Talk by specialist on Education in Cuba pre‐ and post‐Revolution
• Visit to the José de la Luz y Caballeros or another children’s art education program in Old Havana
• Literacy Museum
• Interview specialists on the 1961 literacy campaign in Cuba
• Tour of Ciudad Libertad School City
• Visit to the Teacher Training School at Ciudad Libertad
• Morning Meeting with staff from the National Association of Cuban Teachers
• Visit to the University of Matanzas
• Visit to a special education project
• Afternoon Talk on the “Yo Si Puedo” literacy program developed by Cuba for implementation in other countries

Social Work in Cuba Trip - March 12 to 20, 2011 and June 4 to 12, 2011 and November 10 to 17, 2011

Typical Itinerary, participants can expect to experience the following:

• Meeting with the National Commission for Prevention and Social Assistance
• Meeting with ICAP, the Cuban Institute of Friendship
• Meeting with social workers at a provincial School of Social Work; opportunity to discuss the theoretical and methodological conceptions of social work in Cuba
• Visit to the Adolescent Clinic in Miramar
• Visit to the Con Amor y Esperanza project at the Palacio de los Pioneers (Children’s Palace)
• Meet with social workers at the Carlos Manuel People’s Council
• Visit to the Casa de Orientation de la Mujer y la Familia. This is a national project of the Women’s Federation and at this particular house we are told there will be the opportunity to talk about attention to women with breast cancer
• Visit to the University of Havana and the social work degree program of the Department of Sociology
• Visit to a Policlinic, Cuba’s secondary level public health care center (family doctor being the first)
• Meet with the clinic’s social workers
• Visit to a neighborhood organizing project run by the Group for the Comprehensive Development of the Capital (GDIC)
• Lunch at Casa de la Amistad with members of the national Social Work Project
• Visit to a technical school for the training of social workers

Typical Itinerary, participants can expect to experience the following:

• Intensive tour of Old Havana
• Afternoon Visit to Finca Vigía, the Hemingway Museum and joint U.S.-Cuban restoration project
• Visit to the Morro Castle restoration project and evening activities
• Morning Meeting with Office of Historian specialists
• • Master Plan for restoration of Old Havana
  • Execution of physical restoration & renovation; tourism investment; social, cultural and community work
  • Afternoon Visit to the Escuela Taller Gaspar Melchorde Jovellanos, a training school in restoration

• Visit to Colón Cemetery, a panorama of Cuban architecture through its monuments and mausoleums
• Scale Model of the City for a presentation on the history of the construction of the city, the city's current organization, important aspects and envisioned future
• Meet with specialists from the Office of the Historian of Cienfuegos and continue by bus and on foot to explore the architecture and work of preservation and restoration in the city
• Meet with specialists from the Office of the Historian of Trinidad and continue on foot to explore the architecture and work of preservation and restoration in the city
• Valle de los Ingenios for an extensive exploration of the sugar mills and plantations

Graphic Arts & Printmaking in Cuba Tour - April 16 to April 23, 2011

Typical Itinerary, participants can expect to experience the following:

• Museum of the Revolution
• Silkscreen print shop Taller de Serigrafía René Portocarrero in Old Havana
• Taller Experimental de Gráfica: Havana oldest print shop
• Wilfredo Lam Contemporary Art Center
• Morro Castle with its museums and galleries
• San Alejandro Academy of Art
• Institute of Superior Arts, Cuba’s premier arts college
• Workshop of the artist Fuster in Jaimanitas
• Museo de Bellas Artes, Cuban Art Collection, with a guided tour

History of the Cuban Revolution Tour - April 16 to 23 and May 27 to June 4 and October 8 to 15, 2011

Typical Itinerary, participants can expect to experience the following:

• Bayamo, the 2nd colonial settlement in Cuba
• Manzanillo
• Hotel Guacanayabo
• Media Luna, birth place of Cuban leader Celia Sanchez
• Parque Nal, the Granma Landing Site
• Guafe Ecological/Archeological Park
• Sierra Maestra Mountains to La Plata, the command post for much of the Cuban revolutionary war
• Santiago de Cuba
• Santa Efigenia Cemetery, the Martí Mausoleum, San Juan Hill, and among others
• Frank Pais Museum
• Cayo Granma
• Moncada Barracks
• Santa Clara
• Escambray Mountains
• Hotel Hanabanilla
• Che Guevara Monument and Museum
• Center for Martí Studies
• Antonio Maceo monument
• Plaza of the Revolution
• José Martí monument
• Morro Fortress for the “cañonazo ceremony”
• Playa Girón, the Bay of Pigs
• Tropicana nightclub
• Museum of the Revolution with a presentation on Jose Antonio Echevarria and the attack on The Presidential Palace

Legal Services & the Law in Cuba Trip - April 3 to 9 and May 29 to June 4 and October 8 to 15, 2011

Typical Itinerary, participants can expect to experience the following:

Meeting with members of the Cuban Society for Constitutional and Administrative law at the headquarters of the National Lawyers Union of Cuba (UNJC)

• The Cuban legal system
• The Constitution of the Republic
• Overview of the Electoral System

Meeting with the Cuban Society for Civil Rights and the Family at the UNJC

• Analysis of the Cuban Civil Code and Institutions
• Family Law
• Experiences of the Municipal Family Courts

Meet at the Bureau of Specialized Legal Services with Civil, criminal, commercial and property lawyers
Structure and Function of Cuban Legal Bureaus (Law Collectives)

• The Role of the Lawyer in Cuba

Meeting with officials of the Cuban Society for Labor and Social Security Law

• Organization of the Workforce in Cuba
• New laws and regulations
• Implications of implementation
• The Recently Revised Social Security Laws

Afternoon Visit to the Cuban National Trade Confederation (CTC)

Meeting with Officials of the Cienfuegos Provincial Government

Meeting with the Provincial Leadership of the UNJC in Cienfuegos, including judges, advisors and professors from the University of Cienfuegos Law School

Landscapes of Memory: History, Culture and Historic Preservation in Cuba Tour - May 5 to May 20, 2011

Typical Itinerary, participants can expect to experience the following:

• Scale Model of the City at the Pavilion in Miramar
• Visit to the Neighborhood Transformation Workshop in Cayo Hueso
• Visit to the Neighborhood Transformation Workshop in Atarés‐Pilar
• Guided walking tours of Castillo de Los Tres Reyes del Morro (built 1589‐1629), Castillo San Carlos de la Cabaña (built 1764‐74) and the Plaza de Armas
• Museum of the Revolution
• Visit to Regla
• Museum of Fine Arts with specialist on the architecture and renovation of the building as well as tour of the Cuban Collection housed in the museum
• Spend day with specialists from the Office of the Historian; visit the vignette “maqueta” (scale model) of Old Havana
• Bus tour of the principal neighborhoods and areas of Cuba accompanied by a leading Cuban architect, to include Revolution Square and José Martí Memorial Plaza and the Vedado, Nuevo Vedado, Miramar, and the Cabanacán neighborhoods
• Walking tour of Vedado, including the José Martí Memorial Museum, the Colón Cemetery, Hotel Habana Libre and the Hotel Nacional, the Malecón and other notable features of Vedado
• Tour the City of Cienfuegos
• • Parque José Martí
  • Teatro Tomás Terry
  • Casa de la Cultura Benjamin Duarte
  • Paseo del Prado and the Malecón
  • Punta Gorda, the city’s old upper‐class neighborhood
  • Cienfuegos cemeteries
• Meet with specialists of the Office of the Historian Trinidad who will outline the major work of the Office and take the group on a walking tour of the City, including the Plaza Mayor, the Museo de Arquitectura Trinitaria and the Plaza Santa Ana
• Valley of the Sugar Mills
• Sancti Spiritus
• Camaguey
• Santiago de Cuba
• Moncada Barracks and Museo Histórico 26 de Julio, the Reparto Vista Alegre neighborhood, Santa Ifigenia Cemetery, the Castillo del Morro, the Plaza de la Revolución

Public Health in Cuba Trip - May 7 to 15 and September 17 to 25, 2011 and January 2012

Typical Itinerary, participants can expect to experience the following:

• Visit to the Frank País Hospital, known as ORTOP. Meeting with staff of the hospital for an overview of Cuba’s medical system, including the organization of services and staffing at each
  level of the system
• Meeting with representative of the Ministry of Public Health, MINSAP, for an overview the origins and efficacy of the system of family doctors, Cuba’s primary care level
• Visit to a family doctor dispensary
• Visit to a policlinic. The policlinic is the secondary care unit, which supervises and backs up the family doctors through multidisciplinary teams and an integrative medicine approach.
• Visit an elderly care center, meeting with staff for an explanation of services provided at the facilities, followed by a meeting with members of the Center for Third Age Research
• Visit to a specialized center during alternative medical therapies or producing alternative medicines
• Meet with Cuban Nurses Association
• Visit to a Community Mental Health Center (confirmation pending)

The Black Women of Cuba Tour - May 21 to May 29, 2011

A special program with Casa de las Américas and Pedro Pérez Sarduy, author of The Maids of Havana, a novel of Afro‐Cuban women in 20th Century Cuba. The trip is a research exploration of the lives of Afro‐Cuban women through the lens of the media, literature, music, poetry, film, the blogosphere, and in their own voices. The project will include interviews, presentations, readings, and exploration of the physical environment.