An elderly man living alone in the community of Limpio Chiquito, in the municipality of Cacocum, Holguín province, received food, donations, and financial assistance thanks to an initiative from the solidarity project Huellas, amidst the precarious conditions in which many retirees survive on the island.
The delivery was recorded in a video shared on social media by project members, where the activist Johanna Jolá, leader of the initiative, talks with the man inside his humble home.
During the conversation, the elderly man confirms that he lives alone and receives a state pension of 1,519 Cuban pesos.
When asked how he manages to survive on that amount, the man explains that he depends on family support.
According to the account, a niece takes care of him and provides him with food, while her son, who works, is the one who contributes the money that supports him.
On behalf of the Huellas project and collaborators in Germany, the volunteers provided financial support and informed him that he would also receive donations of food and other basic items to alleviate his situation.
"Don't feel alone, you're not by yourself," the activist said to the elderly man during the visit.
The man thanked them for the gesture with evident emotion. "I feel very satisfied that you came to see me and gave me this gift; I am very grateful," he expressed.
The aid also reached other families in the Limpio Chiquito community where, according to the testimony of the activists, the residents have been without electricity for four months and must cook with firewood or charcoal, surrounded by mud and mosquitoes.
In that environment, children, the elderly, and the sick survive under conditions that the volunteers themselves described as extreme poverty.
The scene reflects an increasingly visible problem in Cuba: the collapse of the pension system in the face of inflation and scarcity.
In many cases, older adults rely on family members, remittances, or solidarity initiatives to meet basic needs.
Similar stories have sparked outrage on social media. In one of the most shared testimonies recently, a retired teacher of 83 years lamented having worked 57 years in the country without being able to ensure even her own food today, a sentiment that encapsulates the neglect reported by many elderly individuals on the island.
Also on social media, content creator Ari from Havana recently showed what a retiree can buy with a pension of 3,000 pesos, equivalent to about 6.7 dollars in the informal market: just some personal care products and two small bags of bread, hardly enough to cover a week of basic expenses.
In light of that reality, projects like Huellas aim to provide timely relief to communities affected by poverty and natural disasters.
The initiative, led by Jolá, has driven fundraising campaigns for donations inside and outside of Cuba to directly deliver food, clothing, medicine, and other items to vulnerable families in the eastern part of the country.
However, cases like that of the elderly man from Limpio Chiquito show that for many retired Cubans, citizen solidarity has become the only safety net against an economic crisis that continues to deteriorate living conditions on the island.
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