Some people have lived away from Cuba for so many years that they have learned to live with an absence that never quite goes away. They have built homes in other lands, raised their children far from their roots and grown old imagining a return that always seems a little further off.
Others never left. They stayed, facing the hardships of every day, watching their families split apart and the simplest things turn into privileges.
Some left. Others stayed. But they all belong to the same story.
Día Uno was born thinking of the moment when that story can begin to be written differently.
What money cannot do, and what it can
We do not promise miracles. There are wounds no amount of money will heal, embraces that came too late and people who will never again sit at the family table.
But there are needs we can ease. A hospital with medicines and an ambulance that arrives in time. Clean water in every home. An elderly person able to live their last years with dignity. A school with light and desks. A young person able to build a future in the land where they were born, without feeling that leaving is the only way out.
That is what Día Uno’s 13 projects are for, and that is what we want to be ready for.
Day One
Day One will come when Cuba has free elections, a multi-party system, freed political prisoners, freedom of expression and full respect for human rights. All five at the same time.
We do not know when that will be. It would be irresponsible to promise a date. What we can do is work from now on so that, when it comes, solidarity does not have to start from scratch.
Until that day, the money waits in Switzerland, in Swiss francs, kept separate project by project. If the transition has not come within 10 years, the Assembly may use it for humanitarian aid to the Cuban people, always through independent organisations. It is never shared out among those who run the association.
A bridge, not a distance
We want Cubans who have made their way to be able to reach out to those who still need help. We want those who found opportunities far from the island to have a transparent way to help their country. We want distance to stop being only a separation and become a bridge too.
Help without distinctions
We want aid to have a destination, a purpose that can be checked and a result that can be verified. And we want to do it regardless of where each Cuban lives, what they think or which path they have chosen.
Hunger does not ask about ideology. Illness does not care about opinions. Dignity belongs to everyone.
Perhaps those who give today will never meet the family their help reaches. Perhaps they will never see the face of the elderly man who got his medicines or the child who could study with the lights on. But they will have changed a small part of a reality that for too long seemed impossible to change.
Not all of us will be able to return to Cuba. Not all of us will be able to rebuild it with our own hands. But all of us can do something for the land where we were born, or for the people who still live there.
Cuba does not need us to promise miracles. It needs us not to leave it alone when the moment comes.
When that first day comes
Some will remember that day for the speeches, the celebrations or the news travelling around the world.
We want there to be Cuban families who remember it because someone, somewhere in the world, thought of them and decided to help.
May the first day of a new Cuba also be the first day our solidarity becomes help.
Your help can start today
There is no need to wait for Day One to get ready. It does not matter whether you can give 10, 50 or 100 francs: what is little for one person may one day be a medicine, a need met or a chance to start again for someone else.
At least 95% of what you give goes to the project you choose. At most 5% covers costs, and anything left over goes back to the project.
And if you cannot give today, you can still help: share Día Uno with your family and friends, in Cuba and beyond.
Día Uno. One country. Millions of hearts. One chance to help.