Parents of children with autism in Cuba: “Now the look of our children is different”

At 18 months old, Cristian’s son was diagnosed with autism. “The most difficult thing is always the beginning. My mother became ill with nerves and I felt like the world was ending. They gave me the diagnosis when my wife and I were expecting a girl, and we immediately thought that she would have the same condition ”.

Teresita is a cardiologist. When she tried to tell her friends about her son’s unusual behavior, they always called her exaggerated. “At four years old, Caleb was extremely hyperkinetic, but no one would listen to me. I placed him in a regular primary school and he didn’t last long, until I got to Dr. Alonso and the change was radical. There they taught me to overcome pain and see potential, focus on the positive”.

Cristian, Teresita, and their two children, recently participated in the workshop “Social inclusion of girls, boys and young people with autism through sports”, which took place for two days in Havana sponsored by the Cuban Ministry of Education and the National Sports Institute (INDER), with the support of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) and other UN entities in Cuba.

Since 2017, the aforementioned Department has been accompanying the use of sport as an inclusive tool for education, health and peace, in line with the UN priority of promoting this type of initiative within the social dimension of sustainable development. On this occasion, Cuba was part, together with the Dominican Republic and Panama, of three countries chosen to promote the social integration of children and young people with autism through athletics and swimming.

Teachers belonging to the project Philippian Italian association with a long tradition in preparing people with autism for sports competition, were in charge of strengthening the capacities of the children themselves, their families and participating coaches.

Sustainable development and inclusive education

The Development Goal of the 2030 Agenda number 4, related to education, has among its goals ensure equal access to different levels of education for all peopleincluding those with disabilities or children in vulnerable situations.

According to the 2022-2023 School Yearbook, in Cuba there are 339 special schools that provide educational attention to 30,610 students with disabilities, 83% in a situation of intellectual disability. At the same time, 10,897 children and adolescents with some type of disability study in regular education, as part of a inclusive education process promoted by the country with the support of United Nations agencies.

Attention to disabilities and inclusive education are priorities of the UN Cuba Cooperation Framework for the 2020-2024 cycle. Previous initiatives accompanied by UNICEF have contributed to strengthening the capacities of teachers and access to educational resources for education, while the United Nations Population Fund has identified sexual and reproductive health needs of people with hearing disabilities, in order to address them strategically in areas acting outside of school.

It’s not the first time

Sport as a tool to achieve inclusion has been promoted before among girls and boys with autism. In 2020, the United Nations Children’s Fund supported the holding of a national inclusive soccer tournament in the country, and generated recreation programs with sports practices for schools in different provinces.

More recently, the United Nations Organization for Education, Science and Culture launched the global initiative fit for lifeto which Cuba has joined to promote the use of sports practices in addressing inequality, with emphasis on people in situations of disability and vulnerability. The recently concluded workshop in Havana now opens the doors to integrate actions between the three agencies, together with national institutions, in order to multiply the scope and ambition of education for children and young people with autism.

This is how the protagonists of the initiative see it, who expect similar training in the future to boost their physical, psychological, behavioral and social skills in people with disabilities.

“Sport allows everyone to see their talents and potential -says one of the participating parents- and the very exercise of competition encourages them to go out and give their best. After the workshop, the look of our children is different”.