The Cuban activist and journalist Guillermo Rodríguez Sánchez started a fundraising campaign on Facebook to help a five-year-old boy from Ciego de Ávila who suffers from several health issues and malnutrition, and whom doctors are considering hospitalizing due to the deterioration of his condition.
His name is Liuver Leandro Martínez Castillo, and he suffers from cerebral palsy, hypoxic encephalopathy, epilepsy, and protein-energy malnutrition with weight-for-height below the third percentile. He is solely nourished through a gastrostomy tube and cannot stand on his own.
"It is a boy who is five years old, but seems to be 10 months old," described Rodríguez Sánchez in a video broadcast live from Mexico, where he currently resides.
All the food that Liuver receives consists of shakes administered through a tube, a permanent line connected directly to his stomach. According to the activist, "the special diet required for his condition is nearly impossible to maintain right now in Cuba," due to the country's food crisis.
His mother, Kirenia, a graduate in Early Childhood Education, has been unable to work since the birth of her youngest child because his condition requires constant attention. She is a single mother and relies on the generosity of others to cover the medical supplies and special food that Liuver needs.
The family's situation worsened about two or three months ago when unscrupulous individuals took advantage of the mother's outing with the child to break into their home and steal.
"Heartless neighbors watched Kirenia when she went out to run an errand with her child, entered the house, and took the EcoFlow that had been given to her by a small business, among other belongings," Rodríguez Sánchez reported. The portable generator and solar panel, which had previously been donated through another solidarity campaign, were not recovered. "Fingerprints were taken, there were obvious suspects, yet no one was arrested," he added.
Rodríguez Sánchez, who had previously organized fundraisers for this family, announced that he would dedicate two days to collecting funds without a specific goal.
He published the Bandec card number of the mother —9224 0699 9712 5683— for donations in Cuban pesos.
Dollars can be sent via Zelle or PayPal, which the activist will use to purchase fortified milk, vitamin complexes, and tube-compatible supplements in Mexico, with the aim of sending them to Cuba in a package scheduled for the first days of October.
Those interested in confirming donations can contact the number 59659518.
“Let’s give him a bit of economic relief amid the harsh existence that Liuver has had to endure,” wrote the activist as he concluded his post.
This is not the first time that Rodríguez Sánchez has mobilized the Cuban community around such cases. In July, he raised more than 500,000 pesos for another child with cerebral palsy in Havana.
Cuban families with children who have this condition face shortages of medications, lack of rehabilitation supplies, and deteriorating hospital infrastructure, obstacles that have worsened due to the economic and healthcare crisis the country is experiencing.
Despite having left Cuba in 2025, Rodríguez Sánchez continues to organize these collections from abroad with the support of people on the island and documents each delivery with photos to build trust among donors.
In April, one million pesos were raised for a family in extreme poverty in Júcaro, Ciego de Ávila, and two months later, a fundraiser linked to their profile exceeded 1.5 million pesos for a child with severe autism in Holguín.
In July, she raised over 400,000 pesos in two days for eight-year-old Lía Isabel García Torres, from Bayamo, who suffers from chronic respiratory illnesses and lives in precarious conditions with her mother, without even access to potable water in their home.
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