By Luis Alberto Portuondo on April 7,2024
photo: Bill Hackwell
On April 7, 1930, the heroine of daily battles for the homeland and its women was born in Santiago de Cuba. The consecration of “all her life to fight for women” which, in short, is the same as thinking and building a fairer country, summarizes what Vilma Espín Guillois was.
As the driving force behind the “Revolution within the Revolution”, which is the main protagonist of the Federation of Cuban Women -of which she is its founder eternal president- she left us her example, which “is more necessary today than ever”.
From a very early age Vilma assumed the ideals of freedom, she was not afraid to shout in the streets of Santiago “Down with Batista!” and join the underground movement. Already in the Sierra Maestra, with great goals and ideas, and as she emphasized, “began the new social relations and the principles of human equality, of dignity on which our Revolution is based”.
Vilma summarizes the imprint of Mariana Grajales, Ana Betancourt, Isabel Rubio; she is present in our women teachers, scientists, engineers, in the deputies who make up the National Assembly of People’s Power -the Parliament in the world with the second highest proportion of women-; she is in the children’s circles, in the women’s and family counseling centers, in all the legislations that protect and guarantee the full exercise of all rights for all people.
But Vilma is not only from Cuba. Her leadership in the Women’s International Democratic Federation and other organizations was decisive. In her transcendental intervention at the 4th World Conference on Women -held in Beijing, China, in 1995, which became a turning point for the global gender equality agenda-. There she stated: “It is necessary that the enormous accumulation of wealth that exists in the world be applied to solve the great problems of Humanity”.
Source: Cuba en Resumen