US Med Graduates Thank Fidel Castro and the Cuban people,Cuban News Agency

HAVANA, Cuba, Jul 24 (acn) US graduates in Cuba Pragveleen Valcourt and Sarpoma Sefa-Boakye thanked this Friday Fidel Castro and the Cuban people for the opportunity they were given in Cuba to study medicine and become doctors.

Both youngsters participated this Friday in a meeting held at the Friendship House with the 20th USA-Cuba Pastors for Peace Friendship Caravan, which collected over 115 tons of humanitarian aid for Cuba in an open defiance to the US blockade laws against the Caribbean nation.

With tears in her eyes, Valcourt, an African-American woman from New York, told ACN news agency that this day she is receiving her diploma of Medical Doctor, after seven years of studies, which has allowed her to fulfill a dear wish, impossible to achieve in her country due to her humble origin.

In these years here I have learnt a lot from the Cuban people and its capacity to resist the cruel blockade, she explained and went on to stress that she will return to her New York community of Hampstead to put into practice what she learnt in the Caribbean nation with great effort and sacrifices.

Sefa-Boakye, born in California and of Ghanaian origin, said she is taking back with her all the love she received from Cubans and the concept of medicine, which prioritizes the human aspect of the work over profit and benefits, two aspects that prevail in the sector of medicine in the United States.

We learnt how to do many things with few resources and to accomplish our mission of mitigating pain and healing people.

She denounced that the US terrible economic war against Cuba forced her parents to travel through a third country to be able to make it on time to her graduation at the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM).

Ellen Bernstein, Associate Director of the Inter-religious Foundation for Community Organization IFCO/Pastors for Peace, told ACN that this Friday 17 US youngsters from humble and discriminated sectors graduated as doctors.