The Pabexpo fairground has surprised this August with one of the most attractive summer proposals, but above all more unexpected in the current Cuban context.
The Pa´cuba summer festival opened its doors to the public until August 31 occupying the four exhibition rooms with a fairly novel concept for the public accustomed to the various fairs that usually have as its headquarters this space such as the International Forestry of Crafts (Fiart) or in past years art for mom.
Pa´cuba is not a fair, it is announced as a festival, although it also does not fit what we usually understand as one. This is a space for family leisure in a wide sense.
“There is a lot of variety of things, there are the same things for the home, that food, a recreation room where children can play and feel happy, you can also decorate your home, the same you can find dolls, glasses …” says Anielis, a teenager who, together with a group of friends, travels the spells divided thematically.
The Center Center, or Sala C, welcomes the entertainment zone with a great diversity of infant-juvenile games and attractions that range from video games, batting training, skating tracks, bicycles and electric cars, inflatables and elastic beds.
Salas A and part of the B are dedicated to the expoavental in which private businesses live mostly from the different forms of non -state management with a wide variety of products. From the artisanal, to national currency appliances can be acquired by the public. The rest of the B Room brings together the gastronomic options that are also led by private businesses.
The room D is the space reserved for cultural programming, which includes the performance of the children’s company “La Colmenita”, and another group of varied presentations ranging from audiovisual projections, presentation of projects, to theme discos.
Another of Pa’Cuba’s great attractions is its 10 in the morning to 10 at 10 at night every day.
In total more than 300 businesses make up the largest summer festival that happens today in the Cuban capital. A land that for more than a decade was practically monopolized by the Art Fair in the ramp organized by the Cuban Fund of Cultural Goods, an appointment that, to think about one of the most central places in the city, the Cuba pavilion in the middle of the ramp in the Vedado; He has shown in recent years a depression in his commercial and cultural offers.
“The event was managed from a dream of the leadership of the Palco company, it will be a matter of two months. We think that in the summer the Cuban family needed to have a festival like the one we are living. We made a launch to all the state entities, not state, to all forms of management, for a first meeting and that the festival would dream with us, and what you are seeing here has been achieved,” says Rafael Rodríguez. Pabexpo Fair.
How do you live pa´cuba?
The private sector had the greatest response and make a majority providing their offers, and also creating community, living in large and small entrepreneurships and generating a maximum of the market rarely exploited in Cuba, competitiveness. The result: diverse options and better prices.
“Beyond the commercial field, this is to make themselves known, to provide a service at this time is a little complicated, especially for children, and handle prices so that they are a little further down than those in the market,” explains Joel Suárez, owner, owner Associated footprintservice company, toy store, media rentals and cafeteria.
“At first I were not very sure of coming, but it was so much enthusiasm and the way we were treated from the first moment, giving us good conditions that that’s why I came and here I feel super good,” summarizes her experience María Elena Barba, owner of For schoolan entrepreneurship dedicated to the preparation and marketing of articles for school use, one of the important demands of the public at this time of year.
Chulerías for the house The little Stand of Sheyla Hernández is named for whom “the experience is spectacular, wonderful people, a lot of public, is a good option for entrepreneurs because it is a way of giving us visibility, and it is not simply the part of sales, but you can make yourself known and that in that way that the public can reach you even if we are at our points of sale or other spaces.”
Gretchen Casas leadra with her husband Álvarez Pielesone of the artisanal manufacturing offers that participate in Pa´cuba. They have been regular for years at the fairs organized mostly by the Fund of Cultural Assets in this and other spaces of the city.
“The experience has really been very satisfactory, a different audience, the quality of the place, the variety of people. The fair is designed rather for entertainment, gastronomy, children, but we have benefited ourselves because we know people, they know us as entrepreneurs, we make family and customers who know us from other fairs continue to come and reunit us, at the same time we continue to make us known. here. “I hope this continues to spread because we really need it, not only on a certain date of the year,” he concludes.
Another of the usual at entrepreneurship fairs is Dehydrated Havana. Its administrator and commercial Danis Mary Medero explains to us: “What we are looking for is that the public has knowledge about our products and at the fairs we are taking people the culture about what Havana is dehydrated and in what it favors health.”
In its first week the festival achieved public figures that reached up to three thousand people daily. This number is expected to go on the rise, because the majority of the public has found here some offer of their interest.
“What I like are the devices to ride, because the fairs that make in December (Fiart) have nothing more,” Jade tells us while his friend Aysha states that “you can find from what you need for the kitchen at home, toys varieties, useful for school, everything is very good.”
Yuneika was found several times on our tour of Pa’Cuba, and when asked what it seemed to him when he was already going out he told us that “this fair is incredible because there are various offers, many things and activities for children that normally these fairs do not have. There are dresses, shoes, even hair accessories, many things and prices are module, I consider that even more economical than in the street”.
Yamilé arrived with her little girl and her husband and says that “the fair has seemed a very representative option for the Cuban family, it has quite accessible prices, very varied offers, children and family can have fun, we have had a good time.”
Recycling
Visibly improvised garbage baskets, created with recycled and differentiated cardboard boxes: “paper, cardboard and textile”, “metals”, “plastic and glass”, “organic residue” and “non -recoverable.” We had to stop. It is one of those things that seems incredible to find in Cuba, although it should be usual.
Then we realized that by any wall, showcase or door could be the explanation. Small educational posters that explained how to classify waste. NuFor Surl, a private technology base company is responsible.
“This is a pilot test, we are trying to demonstrate that it is possible to classify the waste and seek to recycle and reuse them so that they do not end in the landfills, or in the microverters that are created, nor in the seas and oceans. Search that each natural resource that we extract from nature is used as much as possible,” explains Lemar Hurtado Hoyos, president of Nufor Surl.
“When everyone invited us, I was talking about what I was going to contribute, what initiatives was going to do, the cuisine that was going to be done, entertainment and we, as we have this little bit of trying to find how to create greater sustainability for everyone, the circular economy and the best use of waste, we think we are talking about how to consume more and then where the part is of idea.
NuFor Surl has experience in other media environmental initiatives such as beaches and coasts cleaning, but this is their first time working with the classification and processing of waste at origin. Together with them, volunteers from other projects, of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment of Cuba (Citma) and the Antonio Núñez Jiménez Foundation of Nature and the man make up the personnel that daily helps to guide the public in the proper use of the classifying baskets and waste processing.
Business of different types, in addition to the company of recovery of raw materials Havana receive and continue the way to give a new life to the large volumes of garbage that can be generated in an event of this magnitude. The public’s response has been one of the big surprises.
“Maybe they didn’t expect it at the beginning, but once we approached them and explain we have seen that they do have a conscience about it, the only thing there is to educate them and guide them a little, and that is what we want to do step by step,” says Hurtado.
“It is a growth process, we are all learning here and we hope to be wiser in this every day and be able to extend it,” summarizes, and this idea is perfect to look at everything that is happening at the Pa´cuba summer festival that until August 31 takes place in Pabexpo.
