On May 15th Christophe Cornu, specialist from UNESCO Education and Health section, met with directors and experts from the Ministries of Education and High Education, Dr. Mariela Castro Espín director of CENESEX and other specialists, in order to dialogue about bullying based on sexual orientation and gender identity at present.
Yoanka Rodney, PhD, also participated in this meeting as coordinator of the Research Study on homophobic bullying in Cuban educative institutions. She highlighted the national context and the coming enlargement of this project to other provinces as Pinar del Río, Holguín, Camaguey, etc.
This job aims to observe the educative environment to determine then preventive actions to avoid bullying. Some analyzing tools are designed to describe security on this context, the satisfaction and the perception of discrimination within these institutions, between professors and students.
The director of CENESEX, also Deputy to the National Assembly, highlighted that some indicators from UNESCO are going to be introduced in the National Program of Education and Sexual Health (PRONESS, Spanish acronyms) because “it is a clear methodology for monitoring the schools.”
Also, Manuel Vásquez Seijido MSc, Vice-director of CENESEX and President of the Organizing Committee of the 10th Cuban Activities against Homophobia and Transphobia, reaffirmed the chance to work together with UNESCO to prevent discrimination and create mechanisms or laws on these particular issues.
The Official from UNESCO preferred not to provide details of his visit, but he felt surprised of Cuba achievements on these issues, and he got engaged to support researching actions on the Island.
This year, the 10th Cuban Activities have the slogan “schools free from Homophobia and Transphobia”, and it aims to visualize bullying and discrimination, that is why it is focused on training professors and transforming management of pedagogical centers in the country.
Dr. Ada C. Alfonso, expert in violence issues said: “According to PRONESS, homophobic bullying means an intersectoral topic of working together with other institutions because, it goes beyond the educative framework due to the inclusion on many research lines like social inclusion of transsexual people, violence, among others.
Finally, on Mr. Christophe Agenda is included the participation on the activities in Santa Clara, including meetings with media, personalities and local institutions.