When we talk about youth organizations we think of the UJC, but I must clarify that this group was preceded by the Association of Young Rebels, in Camagüey that incipient movement that had great female support.

That is why we came to the lovely home of Yolanda Delgado Rosales, who was a literacy teacher before the campaign and then began to join forces to support the nascent revolution.

We start looking at the origins

It was the first days of January, the young people were going to organize themselves to support all the tasks that lay ahead for the transforming work that was the nascent revolution.

Yolanda went looking for the girls from the neighborhood to join them, many obstacles would appear because a popular comment circulated that terrified the mothers: the rebels took the young people to Russia and the parents would lose their parental rights.

She had to explain then that the Revolution had come for the good of all, to train people and offer them improvement, not to do harm.

The first actions were aimed at educating and distributing some positions, to facilitate the work that in those days needed a lot from everyone. The strength was in the example we could give, she says.

The mass organizations

Not only good wishes were what would push the Cuban Revolution, it was necessary to raise funds to run the organizations, since the Batista government had left the nation without public funds.

Thus they organized cultural galas, they sold pork sandwiches and other foods that some prepared, to obtain money that would pay for other actions necessary to start the great work that was gaining strength.

Then the young rebels arose and the women’s front was came later, two organizations that brought together the youth of the 60s, to forge and promote everything that should change the course and organize society on the way to socialism.

The admiration

Yolanda feels a special affection for the figures of the Revolution, with joy remembers an experience close to Fidel and Che, in a meeting with the young people, where she participated in the security cordon. They were so close that they could joke with Fidel, who recognized that the protection they gave him during the act was very valuable.

For all that she lived through, she says that she keeps each one of the revolutionaries in a special place in her heart. She has no predilection for any, because each one at the time bravely assumed what they had to do.

The eternal young rebel, initiator of the women’s front and worthy follower of the revolutionary precepts forever, nothing stops her, even from home at 88 years old she continues to contribute, now with her beautiful masks to avoid the pandemic.

She, longingly reviewing her glory days, assures that… “the Revolution was very significant but you had to live it to know it”

Translated by: Aileen Álvarez García