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Mark Kuster, a Swiss citizen and director of the NGO Camaquito, announced that the repair work on homes in Santiago de Cuba has already begun, funded by the $50,000 he pledged after the passage of Hurricane Melissa in October 2025.
"I'm very pleased to say that we have already begun: the roof of the first house is currently being repaired. More projects will follow," Kuster wrote on Facebook, where he shared photos of Cuban workers repairing roofs with wooden beams, steel rods, and clay tiles in an urban neighborhood of the city.
Kuster had announced the commitment months earlier when Hurricane Melissa hit Santiago de Cuba, leaving over 137,000 damaged homes, including 22,000 total collapses.
The director of Camaquito explained that the start of the works was delayed for specific reasons: the need to find reliable partners on the ground and the inherent difficulties of the situation in Cuba.
"From the beginning, we were clear that sustainable aid requires time. For us, it was essential to work with reliable and serious partners on the ground to achieve a real and lasting impact," he noted.
Kuster also pointed directly to the structural obstacles in the country: "The delays are also due to the current situation in Cuba, such as frequent power outages and fuel shortages, which make the entire process more complex."
From the very beginning, the Swiss made it clear that the funds - coming from his own pocket and from close friends - would be managed without intermediaries and without bureaucracy.
Camaquito is an independent NGO, free from political or religious affiliations, founded by Kuster on June 21, 2001, in Switzerland.
The name is a fusion of "Camagüey" - the province that captivated him on his first trip to Cuba in 1998 when he was 25 years old - and "chamaquito," an affectionate term for children on the Island.
Since 2003, Kuster has been living in Cuba, personally overseeing each project. In these 25 years, his organization has raised over four million euros with volunteers in Europe, and has invested it in education, health, culture, social inclusion, and community sports in the provinces of Camagüey and Santiago de Cuba.
Among their projects stand out the renovation of operating rooms at Ana Betancourt Maternal Hospital, the work with the School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, the Suzuqui project for teaching violin to children from the age of three, the Without Barriers program for young people with psychomotor disabilities, and the installation of solar lamps in parks in Santiago during the energy crisis.
The Cuban playwright and theater director Freddys Núñez Estenoz published an emotional message on Facebook recognizing Kuster's work, whom he described as someone whose commitment to Cuba and its people is a lifelong dedication.
Núñez Estenoz acknowledged that the project has faced criticism, misunderstanding, and distrust, but he insists that Kuster's ideas "are not subordinated to orders, whims, and egos."
"You can say that this is oxygen for the regime, you might think it’s another colonizer trying to take advantage... I have witnessed the real impact of their work in favor of the people and the community," he emphasized.
And he concluded by saying that "they restore hope to entire communities and smiles to many children."
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