Last Good Friday, at 4:30 in the afternoon, the activist Yasser Sosa Tamayo, who works to support the elderly and vulnerable individuals in Santiago de Cuba, met in a park a 14-year-old boy named Joelis who was selling polvorones to financially assist his mother and his 10-year-old sister.
The meeting was recorded in a video that Yasser published on Instagram, where Joelis himself explains his situation with a simplicity that strikes: "To make a little money to help my family."
In the recording, the activist approaches the minor and asks him how many polvorones he has left. Joelis replies that he has 14, at 50 pesos each, totaling 700 pesos. When asked if his mom works, the teenager responds that she does.
"You should be thinking about studying and having fun right now, and instead, you are taking on a role that truly deserves admiration. A role that belongs to a man, to someone who should be responsible," Sosa Tamayo told the young man, visibly moved.
He bought her the 14 polvorones and gave her extra money, asking her to go home and rest. "Let's get you the polvorones, that would be 700 pesos, because I need you to go home now, to have some fun, take a shower, maybe go for a stroll," he told her.
But what happened next surpassed all expectations: Joelis, instead of putting away the sweets, decided to share them with the children playing in the park.
Sosa Tamayo described the gesture with these words: "He, who went out to sell because money is tight at home, chose to share. He, who knows scarcity, acted as someone who lives in abundance."
The case of Joelis is not an isolated incident. It reflects a crisis that forces Cuban children and adolescents to take on responsibilities that do not belong to them.
Sosa Tamayo has documented a series of similar situations in Santiago de Cuba: last October, he reported the case of a nine-year-old boy selling chicken pills on Enramadas Street.
In December, the case of another 11-year-old who sold puddings to help his grandfather, and that of a 15-year-old with a tracheostomy who sold pizzas despite his delicate health condition.
Cuban law sets the minimum working age at 17, and the Constitution prohibits child labor. However, the regime has not taken effective measures to curb its expansion.
Recent studies show that informal child labor has visibly expanded amid the crisis.
Behind each of these cases lies a structural cause: 67 years of communist dictatorship have plunged the Cuban economy to critical levels. The GDP has contracted by approximately 11% over five years, with a drop of 5% occurring just in 2025.
Power outages have lasted between 25 and 30 hours. The shortage of food, fuel, and medications is chronic. In this context, single-parent families—like Joelis's—are the most vulnerable, and it is often the children who support what the State has abandoned.
"A child in the street trying to help his mother when at that age he should be occupied with play, notebooks, and mischief, not learning so early the weight of need," wrote Sosa Tamayo.
And he concluded with a reflection that summarizes the paradox of today’s Cuba: "Today it was not just a child selling sweets. It was childhood reminding us, right in the street, how much the world has hardened… and how much kindness continues to save it when it emerges."
Filed under: