Simón Bolívar Institute nominates Cuba's Henry Reeve International Medical Brigade for Nobel Peace Prize - MPPRE

Simón Bolívar Institute nominates Cuba’s Henry Reeve International Medical Brigade for Nobel Peace Prize

“Understanding the need of summoning the Bolivarian ideal to promote relations of solidarity, exchange and cooperation among the peoples of the world to build true peace and justice, Venezuela and the Simón Bolívar Institute for Peace and Solidarity among Peoples joined the international campaign to formally nominate the Henry Reeve International Contingent of Doctors Specialized in Disasters and Serious Epidemics for the Nobel Peace Prize,” said on Monday Carlos Ron, president of the Simón Bolívar Institute for Peace and Solidarity among Peoples, at a heartfelt event held in Casa Amarilla Antonio José de Sucre, headquarters of Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry in Caracas.

In his statement, the president of the Simón Bolívar Institute said this gesture is the result of “the Venezuelan people’s gratitude to the brigade for all its support and solidarity to the world (…) The peoples of the world show their gratitude, but it is important that they receive this recognition because they have shown in times of pandemic that solidarity prevails as the force to combat and overcome hardships.”

Likewise, Ron said that Venezuela and other countries have received the Henry Reeve Brigade’s support, and this nomination is just a gesture of love for all its solidarity.

Venezuela and Cuba in the same trench to fight for life

Reinol García Moreiro, chief of the Cuban Medical Mission in Venezuela, thanked this gesture on behalf of the Cuban people, the Henry Reeve Brigade and the health staff working on a daily basis to fulfill their sacred duty to save lives.

Likewise, García Moreiro highlighted that “in America, Asia, Oceania, Europe, Central America and everywhere, the conscience, humanism and solidarity of this glorious brigade’s health staff have shone” when facing sanitary situations under the hardest conditions.

On the close ties between Venezuela and Cuba, he remarked that seven Henry Reeve Brigades arrived in 2020 in the South American country to help 19 states fight COVID-19, and added that these ideas, gestures, cooperation, and solidarity-based projects are part of the concrete ideas of Commanders Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro.

In that same vein, the Cuban Ambassador to Venezuela, Dagoberto Rodríguez Barrera, said that “Martí and Bolívar planted the seeds of this fraternal relation and solidarity-based cooperation between the two countries.”

“There is no way we can preserve life without solidarity-based cooperation (…) We are in the same trench to fight for life and the wellbeing of our people. Nothing will make us stray from that path,” said the Cuban diplomat, who thanked the Simón Bolívar Institute for the nomination.

Henry Reeve Brigade: 15 years heeding the call of the people

The International Contingent of Doctors Specialized in Disasters and Serious Epidemics has been part of international efforts to increase health cooperation among nations for 15 years.

In this period, 71 medical brigades have been formed:, including 46 to face COVID-19 in 22 countries, 3 to face the Ebola epidemic, 2 to fight the cholera epidemic and 20 to help in the aftermath of different natural disasters (8 specialized in floods, 7 in earthquakes and 5 in hurricanes).

The nomination event was attended by the Simón Bolívar Institute’s authorities, the Cuban ambassador to Venezuela, the chief of the Cuban Medical Mission in Venezuela, Henry Reeve Brigade’s delegates, representatives of the Association of Cuban Residents in Venezuelan, the Cuba-Venezuela Movement of Solidarity and Friendship, and Venezuelan academics and spokespeople.