Liliet studies law at the University of Havana. She is also an environmental activist with a real commitment to deepening people’s relationship to the environment. She says that climate change connects to everything and she sees the power of legislation in addressing Cuba’s environmental challenges.
Liliet is a real character. She is usually the fastest one to crack a joke and has an endless quantity of sarcasm and humour. She comes across as an easy-going, witty 20 years old.
Our official introduction to the group happened through an exercise in which we each outlined our body on the floor, using chalk. We told our stories by filling out the different parts of our body. We filled our heads with our visions and dreams, we wrote what is in our heart, we explained what we do (in our hands), where we want to go (in our legs), and what our instinct says (in our gut).
Liliet told us that she believes in ‘carpe diem’, in living life to the fullest. She explained that everything that she does is directed towards creating a ‘cambio real’, ‘real change’.
At this point I was expecting her to talk about the environment. Instead, she points to the heart in her drawing, where she had written ‘mi hermana’, ‘my sister’.
She says that everything that she does: in relationship to her environmental work, at home or at university is to create ‘real change within her house’.
She does not give a name to what she is trying to change, but she is not talking about changing her family’s economic or social change – she explains that is not the main concern. Instead, Liliet wants her parents to be more present with her sister, and in that way allow her sister to grow more empowered and become emotionally healthy.
Liliet’s work is inspired by a desire to deepen the quality of the interactions between her family and to change the ‘culture’ of her household.
– Gioel
