On his social media account, the president sent his best wishes to all those going through this stage of their lives and recommended that they read the words spoken two decades ago by the historical leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro.

“His message from then has an impressive relevance and lessons for the future of any era,” Diaz-Canel wrote.

Meanwhile, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez, also on social media, remembered Fidel Castro’s speech in the University of Havana on November 17, 2005, during the celebration of the 60th anniversary of his enrollment at that Higher Education Center.

The Cuban foreign minister contextualized the historical relevance of the speech and its warnings about imperialist threats against the peoples of the Global South, as well as its call to preserve the work of the Revolution with unity, awareness, and intelligence.

Rodriguez also celebrated the Cuban leader’s optimism in dedicating all his energy and “all our time to be able to say, in the voice of millions, hundreds of millions, or billions: It was worth being born! It was worth living!”

International Students’ Day originated on November 17, 1939, when a group of young Czechoslovakians staged a heroic resistance in the streets of Prague against Hitler’s forces.

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