For Immediate Release
July 26, 2000
Please Contact: Colin Durrant (617)722-1650 or
Dalié Jiménez, 617-722-1650

Aside from his regular legislative and constituent duties, Jarrett has recently taken on a special charity project with the help of Oxfam America. The Cuba Library Book Project was launched last summer with the help of four student volunteers and it has already proved to be an exciting and worthwhile effort for Jarrett and his team.

For forty years the United States has maintained a trade embargo against Cuba. While there has been a great deal of recent focus by charity groups on the terrible effect this policy has on the ability of average Cubans to gain access to food and medicine, deprivation of another sort has gone unnoticed. The embargo prevents Cubans from accessing written language and information about the outside world. The Cuba Library Book Donation Project is an effort to alleviate Cuba's shortage of books and establish nonpolitical "people to people" contact between citizens of Greater Boston and Cuba.

Currently, the Barrios team is soliciting donations of Spanish fiction, medical and engineering texts, English-as-a-Second Language texts, and English/Spanish dictionaries from publishers across the country. In early January, Jarrett and a delegation of legislators and other civic leaders will deliver 5000 books to libraries in 10 towns across Cuba. As part of the visit the delegation will the humanitarian projects of other NGO's operating in Cuba such as Oxfam's Urban Garden Project and shelter for people with AIDS run by Caritas Cubana.

If you are interesting in helping the Barrios staff with the Cuba Library Book Donation Project or know of potential sources of books, please contact Stephen Spear in Jarrett's State House office at (617) 722-2130.

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