Valerie Mather LRPS - Children of Cuba

from RPS The Decisive Moment - Edition 15 - March 2019

by Documentary Group, Royal Photographic Society

Maryann Morris ARPS - Perceptions Project

On a recent visit to Cuba I quickly discovered that, contrary to the UK, the people of Cuba are comfortable allowing their children to be photographed. Wherever I went I was immediately invited into homes, classrooms, schoolyards and sports day events.

Life in Cuba is simple, especially in the rural communities and people have very few possessions. Children amuse themselves playing street games, with small stones filling in for marbles, or flying homemade kites at the weekends. Maths homework is done with chalk on the pavements outside of people’s homes. Classrooms are sparsely furnished. Not a computer in sight. Despite this the literacy rate in Cuba, since the communist revolution, is one of the highest in the world, far higher than in the US. Many schools have a uniform, worn proudly by Cuban children and despite the dust and dirt and lack of running water, always pristine. It is white shirts and bow ties for the older boys, looking like members of a modern-day Sinatra’s rat pack, walking to school.

Sports are encouraged in Cuba and there is support for ballet and boxing in particular. Football, as always, is a universal language played out under the Cuban flag, without pitches or goalposts but wearing that all-important Rooney shirt! A rare glimpse of western capitalist culture.

Overall, the children and young adults I met on my travels, be it in the rural tobacco communities of Vinales, the cobbled streets of Trinidad De Cuba, or the city streets of Havana were open, warm and unfailingly polite. I hope to return there soon.

www.valeriematherphotography.co.ukInstagram: @valeriematherphotography