The solidarity project Regalando Sonrisas launched an urgent call for assistance for Yaquelín, known as "Cary," a single mother from Cuba with nine children who is facing extreme living conditions while battling a cancerous illness.
Yaquelín is waiting for a tomography at a health center in Havana and does not have the resources to feed her family or buy the medications that her children need.
Three of the nine children have mental health issues, and one infant was running a high fever at the time the video was recorded.
In her own testimony, the woman described the situation with documents in hand: "Here I have a file in which I have evidence that I have this child with a mental disorder, a borderline intellectual disability, he is a bit aggressive, and he is medicated with a tablet of alprazolam."
One of her daughters is being cared for at the William Soler Hospital by a neurologist and a pediatric neurologist.
Her prescribed medication is risperidone, but Yaquelín cannot obtain it: "What I really need is risperidone, but I can't find it, so she's currently taking carbamazepine until the medication can be changed."
The shortage of psychotropic drugs like risperidone is chronic in Cuba.
That medication has been completely unavailable in state pharmacies in Havana and Santiago since November 2024, a situation that continued throughout 2025 and is part of the widespread collapse of the public health system on the Island.
Yaquelín also reported institutional neglect: "The parents don't help me. I've filed complaints with the prosecutor's office, and I've been waiting for a response for a year, neither regarding the pension nor anything else."
"The only material assistance I have received from the State is three mattresses without a bed. 'That is the only help I have been given,' she said."
"If it's financial aid, it does nothing for me. And as I show them the situation where I have nothing to cook with, I really have nothing," she emphasized.
Her eldest son, who is 19 years old, is in military service. The other eight depend entirely on her under conditions that, as she described, do not allow her to ensure even daily food.
The case of Yaquelín is not an isolated one. In April, a single mother in Cárdenas with five children also made an urgent plea for not having anything to feed them, in a country where 96.91% of the population has lost sufficient access to food due to inflation.
Single mothers are one of the groups hardest hit by the crisis.
An adult in Cuba needs the equivalent of 20 minimum monthly wages to afford a basic diet, and one in ten children suffers from severe food poverty. 80% of Cubans believe the current situation is worse than the Special Period of the 1990s.
The "Regalando Sonrisas" project, led by Yai Savon and Carlos Blanco Torné, has previously documented other similar cases of Cuban mothers in crisis to mobilize donations through social media.
Organizations like Caritas Cuba has prioritized single mothers with young children in their distribution of humanitarian aid.
Yaquelín concluded her testimony with a direct plea: "I am truly seeking help, whether it be food, assistance for my children, support for school, or any kind of aid, because I am really going through a very difficult time."
Filed under: