By María Josefina Arce

With multiple challenges, but also with many desires to improve its functioning and work for the present and the future of the country, the Union of Young Communist Cubans is reaching its sixty-second anniversary of its creation.

And this new birthday finds the youth organization immersed in the debate of transcendental issues for the socioeconomic advancement of the nation and the challenges facing the new generations, which has had its culmination in its Twelfth Congress, which closes its doors this Thursday in Havana.

Since its birth on April 4, 1962, the UJC has been at the forefront of every task of the revolution, capable of mobilizing not only its members but all Cuban youth.

Since January 1959 and under the guidance of the historic leader of the Cuban revolution, Fidel Castro, who placed all his confidence in the youth, this sector of the population gained social protagonism and became present in all spheres.

In those early years, their participation in the Literacy Campaign was decisive, which brought knowledge to the most remote places of the national geography, and opened new opportunities for many Cubans.

As it has also been throughout these decades in the defense of the sovereignty of the homeland. Many young people made possible the defeat in less than 72 hours of the mercenary invasion of Playa Girón, financed and supported by the United States.

In education, health, construction, production, services and telecommunications, among other branches, they are present and, making their own the principle of solidarity that distinguishes the Cuban revolution, they have taken their knowledge and help to other peoples of the world.

We cannot forget that during the COVID 19 pandemic, they were in the front line in confronting the disease caused by the new coronavirus, which caused millions of deaths in the world.

In hospitals, isolation centers, in the laboratories where vaccines against the virus were developed and in the communities helping the vulnerable, they demonstrated that young Cubans can be counted on, regardless of the difficulty and risk of the task.

With the satisfaction of having always contributed to the defense of the achievements of the revolution, but also with the commitment to continue working for a better country with that impetus and creativity that characterizes the youth, the UJC, heir and continuator of the revolutionary work, reaches a new anniversary.