BY BRIAN TAYLOR

With just days left before participants in the U.S.-Cuba Youth Exchange leave for Santiago, Cuba, local coalitions and Youth Exchange committees all over the country are planning send-off, report-back, and other activities for the trip. New people continue bumping into those already going to Cuba and then decide to go themselves, bringing the current total of people that have their spot on the trip secured to just over 150.

In Minneapolis a press conference is scheduled for 1 p.m. July 20, at the University of Minnesota. All the young people on the trip will have a chance to explain why they are going. Later that evening they have planned a send-off, also at the university. Tom Hansen, a Pastors for Peace leader, has been invited to address the meeting and give an update on the fight around demanding that the U.S. government release computers donated to Cuba.

A successful fund-raiser was carried out in Boston on Thursday July 11, entitled "Workers and Unions in Cuba Today." It took place at the Service Employees International Union Local 285 hall. The July 26th Coalition, a local group in solidarity with Cuba, invited several people who attended the 17th Congress of the Central Organization of Cuban Workers to speak. Jared Friedman, a Boston participant in the Youth Exchange, appealed to the audience for financial support.

The New York committee is building a send-off event for July 20 at Casa de las Américas. One of the featured speakers will be Leslie Cagan of the Cuba Information Project.

In Chicago participants are planning an orientation meeting to prepare travelers for the trip. Part of the program will include a presentation on the Cuban Revolution and its impact on Cuban-Americans now in solidarity with Cuba. They also have a concert planned for July 21 that includes as its featured performer Alberto Tosca, a Cuban guitarist who is awaiting his visa to tour in the United States. A report-back has also been set up in the form of a radio interview on the Northeastern University radio station.

The Atlanta delegation of the Youth Exchange have already secured at least two report-back activities. One will take place at a campus coffee shop at the University of Georgia, which will include Bernardo Gomez, coordinator of the Atlanta Network on Cuba (ANOC). The other event will be reporting to senior students at Paideia high school. ANOC also sent out a 200-piece mailing calling for friends of Cuba to contribute as many pencils as possible that will go to schools, hospitals, farms, and factories.

Clint Ivie, a member of United Auto Workers Local 882 and a member of the Young Socialists in Atlanta, wrote a letter to the Militant describing his fight to get time off work to go on the trip. Explaining how a manager at his plant gave him time off, then got replaced by another manager who threatened to ignore the previous decision, Ivie wrote, "I told the new plant manager about the days I needed off and that it was already approved. He told me he would talk it over with the general management and that he couldn't make any promises.

"I went immediately to my shop steward and told her what was going on. She went straight to human resources. The next day the plant manager came and made it look like he had done me a favor by giving me the day off and had the nerve to ask me to work harder in exchange for the `favor.' But in reality, of course, he knew I had more support on my side from co-workers and the union than he had on his."  
 
 
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