Elpidia Moreno Hernández is the national coordinator of the World March of Women (WMW) in Cuba and a member of the international relations team of the Federation of Cuban Women. The organization, founded in 1960 shortly after the revolution, coordinates the Cuban chapter of the WMW and organizes women across the country. In the video, Elpidia denounces the concrete impacts of the US economic embargo on the lives of the Cuban people and affirms the strength of Cuban women in defending the socialist project: “Cuba is a point of reference, and we will continue to be one.”
The US government is escalating the economic embargo against Cuba. On May 1st, 2026, President Donald Trump announced new sanctions aimed at suffocating the Cuban economy, targeting foreign banks that do business with the Cuban government and imposing immigration restrictions. These measures add up to the embargo that has been in place since 1962 and the oil blockade imposed in January 2026, which limits the entry of oil into the country. In addition to this measure, Trump publicly declared that he would send an aircraft carrier to the Cuban coast and take control of the island “almost immediately.” Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel denounced the measures as a “genocidal blockade” and called for a popular mobilization on International Workers’ Day, when hundreds of thousands of people occupied the Malecón, Havana’s seaside boulevard, in front of the US embassy.
It is in this context that Elpidia describes the impact of the embargo on daily life: difficult access to medications, shortages of medicines for children with cancer, blocked access to technologies that ensure women’s fertility, and a lack of supplies for special education. Even so, she affirms: “We are very creative women” – and describes how Cuban women build alternatives, caring for the community, growing food in their backyards, and cultivating medicinal plants. “We will not stop striving to overcome the embargo,” she states.
The World March of Women joins the global solidarity campaign for Cuba to collect medicines and solar panels. Donations can be made at www.letcubalive.info/donate.
