Contact: Meredith Amor
Director of Communications
PR@Barry.edu
(305) 775-8629
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 20, 2021
Barry University Community Comes Together in Solidarity with the Cuban People
(MIAMI, FL) Today, members of the Barry University community gathered in front of the university’s Peace Pole on main campus for a moment of prayer and reflection in solidarity with the Cuban people. Against the backdrop of a Cuban flag, University Chaplain Father Cristobal Torres spoke of peace and freedom and the right to human dignity for all.
“We wanted to make sure that we stood in solidarity with Cuba with our prayers and at the same time we prayed for Haiti and we prayed with all of the people right now who are in need of peace, who are looking for freedom, who are looking for a more dignified life, in so many ways,” Father Cristobal said. “But in a special way to stand with the Cuban people as they call for freedom and for a renewed homeland."
The event was sponsored by Barry University Campus Ministry and the Barry University Institute for Immigration Studies, which was founded this year to promote education and understanding of the South Florida immigrant experience.
With that experience so deeply tied to Cuba for so many in our South Florida Community, Dr. Giselle Elgarresta Rios, Founding Director of the Institute for Immigration Studies, underscored the significance of the event. “Today was to show prayer, to show peace, to show that we support ‘libertad’ on the island and that we are against dictatorship.”
Barry University’s Dwayne O. Andreas School of Law hosted a simultaneous event on its Orlando campus.