CUBA'S - techlife magazine

INNOVATE
24 techlifemag.ca
From left, Leonis pérez gonzález, a fourth-period Electricity student at CNCI, in his dorm room after classes; the
students and staff of CNCI make their home here, in nearby Nuclear City. Opposite, a church in the central square
of Cienfuegos, the largest urban centre in the area.
As soon as leonis pérez gonzález steps through
the door of his college dorm, in a tiny city on
Cuba’s south coast, the tour he’s conducting of
his temporary home is virtually over. The place might
measure 20 square metres. There’s a sink, a tiny plastic
table, two sets of bunkbeds, a closet far too small for
the belongings of him and three roommates, and a
balcony looking onto concrete walkups distinguished
from this one by little more than location, each one as
blocky, plain and weathered as the next.
Pérez doesn’t mind. He has his distractions:
weekend trips into the nearby city of Cienfuegos, a
portable CD player for listening to salsa and reggae,
and keeping up with the struggles of his hometown
baseball team of Santiago de Cuba, 670 kilometres
to the southeast. “They’re young,” he explains with a
forgiving shrug. “They have a lot of new players.”
Really, he’s too busy to worry about his cramped
quarters anyway. Pérez, 36, is a fourth-period Electricity
student at the nearby Centro Nacional para la
Certificación Industrial (CNCI, or the national centre for
industrial certification). “It is a lot of subjects in a small
time,” he says in confident but limited English. “It is very
hard but it is to our benefit.”
Already an electrician at a cement company in
Santiago, Pérez knows the certification he’s getting at
CNCI – which meets international standards – will mean
a modest pay raise. That’s a privilege. “There are others
who cannot come here,” he says.
In time, they might. Thousands already have.
Once, this remote part of Cuba, roughly 250 kilometres
southeast of Havana and overlooking Cienfuegos Bay,
was the site of a Soviet attempt to kick-start Cuba’s
nuclear power infrastructure. Pérez’s current hometown,
known almost nostalgically as Nuclear City, was
originally built to house staff to run the local plant.
When its construction was unexpectedly suspended
in 1992, a few thousand workers suddenly had no
obvious purpose.
That’s changed. In the service of Cuba’s Ministry
of Basic Industry (MINBAS), and through a 10-year
partnership with NAIT and the Canadian International
Development Agency (CIDA), CNCI has transformed
this region into a staging ground for the future of the
nation. At home, it has pushed Cuban productivity with
a workforce of skilled tradespeople. But, in a nation
politically and economically isolated for more than half
a century, it is also creating new – and more importantly,
sustainable – opportunities with international partners.