Fidel recalled that from March 28-30, 2002, four important programs of the Revolution were inaugurated in the heroic province of Granma, and four years later their success is astonishing.

He specified that the program to introduce computers into elementary education is benefiting 74, 374 students in the region with 2,000-plus computers.

Likewise, he noted that the audiovisual program for elementary and secondary schools in Granma has 7,460 televisions, 3,581 videocassette players and 5,054 computers, and that 485 schools that previously lacked electricity are now powered by solar panels, where the cost of exploiting that form of energy doesn’t cost a single cent, even for lighting.

He added that 167 of those schools have less than five students, while 24 have one student and one teacher, in line with the principle that no children should be left without a school, no matter how remote their place of residence, and he appealed for reflection on that reality, which, he said, would be difficult to beat.

The first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba alluded to the Comprehensive General Education course for young people, begun four years ago in the city of Manzanillo, and which now has an enrollment of 17,930, and said that Granma has 47,409 students in higher education, three times more than the country had at the time of the triumph of the Revolution.

Enrollment has increased in all 39 areas of university study in the province thanks to the program to universalize higher education, with 54 new university extensions — at least one in every municipality.

He noted that at the time of the triumph of the Revolution, there were two secondary schools in the region, which can be recalled by grandparents and great-grandparents for their descendants.

Fidel affirmed that four years ago, Granma’s unemployment rate stood at 10.7%, and has now dropped to 1.6%, the equivalent of full employment.

In order to bring television to people living in remote areas, there are 454 video halls in Granma and another 10 are being built – the largest number for any Cuban province, and they have been widely enjoyed by residents, the Cuban president said, explaining that 364 of those buildings are also used for physical rehabilitation activities in the community.

He also noted the construction of schools for the visual arts and the education these provide; the remodeling of Manzanillo’s theater; the training of municipal concert bands and other bands for children and prison inmates, and the educational progress made by the latter as part of their reeducation.

He informed that Granma now has 43 Youth Computer Clubs, equipped with 524 computers, and that 59,473 students have graduated from them. Nationwide, there are now 600 Youth Computer Cubs, making it possible for all citizens to have access to the libraries of the world, Fidel noted, announcing that an additional seven new facilities are to be built.

The province has implemented 614 projects of the Battle of Ideas, along with other socially important tasks, including the Manzanillo Aqueduct, with 550 kilometers of pipeline installed, which will benefit more than 105,780 residents.

The southern access road of Bayamo has been completed as has the city’s northern drainage system, of great social benefit, providing waste treatment for 80,000 people; a rebuilt section of the Veguitas-Yara-Manzanillo highway has been inaugurated, and work is ongoing on another stretch.

Twenty-seven schools have been rebuilt for 14,000 students; construction work finished on eight polyclinics attending to more than 241,000 residents, and work is being done on 21 other facilities to provide top-notch service to the rest of the province’s residents, with 13 of them to be completed in the next four months.

Granma has received high-tech equipment, improving the quality of healthcare in the eight newly-finished polyclinics as well as the 165 already existing ones.

Fidel noted that previously, those services were only offered in hospitals, but that now all of the country’s polyclinics will provide them 24 hours per day, because it should never be forgotten that those healthcare centers are used by human beings of all ages who could be suffering from any health problem or have an accident.

The day that rational societies exist, all of the force of their education can be used for creating and transmitting values, which is the task of educators, from primary-school children to those who are over 100 years old, Fidel said.

In that respect, the president affirmed that he would fight until his very last breath to do something good and useful, "because we have all learned to do something useful, and human beings are exalted when they do something for others."

Fidel referred to other projects and technological improvements in Granma’s specialized healthcare centers, and informed that 2,232 residents of the province are among the Cubans engaged in medical missions in 72 countries.

Education in the arts and culture has also been boosted and expanded in the province, the president said, noting that 385 art instructors have graduated and are now teaching in 210 schools, benefiting more than 52,000 students in art appreciation workshops.

He affirmed that Granma "does not need any Yankee transition plan" to attend to the people’s health, "because today we have what more than 40 million U.S. people do not have."

He emphasized that President Bush and others who are talking about "transition plans" for Cuba should come to Granma or any other place in Cuba to see what a development program is.

Fidel referred to the severe effects in Granma of a hurricane that razed entire forests in the Sierra Maestra Mountains, and the damage to the housing stock, schools, healthcare centers and other services, as well as crops and the road network, which have received urgent attention.

With respect to the country’s energy revolution, Fidel mentioned the installation of new, permanent generating plants to guarantee that energy source in Granma, adding that bakeries are soon to be built running on electric power, and reviewed the distribution of electric appliances and other projects underway. He also explained plans to expand municipal TV stations and guarantee that their signal reaches the most remote locations.

There are 553 students from Granma in the University of Information Science (UCI), which Fidel described as one of the best institutions that has ever existed; it now has 8,000 students and will have 10,000 next year.

For the next school year, a regional UCI faculty is to be created on an experimental basis, with 300 students from Guantánamo, Santiago de Cuba, Holguín and Granma, and is to be provisionally located in the Informatics Polytechnic in Manzanillo. Similar extensions will be built in other regions, he said.

The Cuban president noted that it was in Granma that the first victorious battle against the Batista dictatorship took place, and he recalled military actions in the outskirts of the city of Bayamo, praising the heroism of the Rebel Army’s combatants.

Fidel highlighted the work carried out by other provinces that stood out in the emulation process, and cited data to demonstrate the progress achieved on the national level.

During the event, Fidel and other high-ranking leaders presented the flag for the Winning Province in Emulation for the 26th of July to Lázaro Expósito Canto, first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba in Granma.

Other provinces that stood out for their emulation included City of Havana,

Villa Clara, Camagüey and Pinar del Río, as well as 20 government agencies in Granma that contributed to that province’s triumph with outstanding work.

Various recitations praising the Revolution’s great project and other cultural expressions opened the event on the morning of the Day of National Rebellion in the remodeled Plaza de la Patria, where messages were read out from Fernando and René, two of the five Cuban anti-terrorist fighters, national heroes unjustly imprisoned in U.S. jails.

In a brief speech, Expósito Canto summed up Granma’s progress, achieved on the basis of honest, everyday work and the revolutionary conviction of meeting its commitments to the Revolution and improving the people’s quality of life.