United Buddy Bears in Havana

By Jorge Fernández Era

Following a thirteen-year grand tour around countries from various continents, the United Buddy Bears traveling exhibit –an initiative cooked up in Berlin in a bid to foster tolerance, peaceful coexistence and unity among peoples- opened in Havana’s St. Francis of Assisi Square, sponsored by the United Nations Organization, the embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Office of the City’s Historian.

Bears, animals that for ages have stood for nature’s strength and have been used as toys and pets in children’s games, derive in United Buddy Bears –based on the interpretation of each and every bear that put “hand in hand” have been painted by fine artists from 140 countries- as a representation of cultures that make up the peaceful world we all dream of. That makes way for the exhibit’s slogan: “We have to know each other better to understand each other better, trust in one another more and coexist better.”

By means of donations and auctions of Buddy Bears, as many as 2,050,733 euros have been raised up to December 2014 for UNICEF and children-aid local organizations.

During the grand opening in Havana, Dr. Peter Scholz, German ambassador to Cuba, underscored that the message of tolerance and friendship among peoples that comes from the exhibit’s motto cannot fade out unheard in the distance, and that he hopes bears could bring great pleasure and joy to the Cuban people and children over the next six weeks.

For his part, Dr. Eusebio Leal Spengler, historian of the city of Havana, said: “I’m glad to imagine that now, revived in the colors that each artist sees the world, these bears are here in the heart of the Historic Center, World Heritage, putting some sense into this vision of openness and tolerance, a sign of human coexistence, a token of peace and concord, so indispensable in the hearts, in the spirit of nations and persons.”