Kenya Dworkin Helps Prepare the Ground for Democracy in Cuba

Kenya Dworkin, associate professor of hispanic studies, is helping to prepare the ground for democracy in Cuba. So says Carnegie Mellon alum Nicholas Ducassi in his touching story on meeting his Cuban grandfather for the very first time, at the age of twenty-seven.

Dworkin, along with Robert Cavalier, teaching professor of philosophy, is involved in Carnegie Mellon’s Program for Deliberative Democracy, which “strives to improve local and regional decision-making through informed citizen deliberations.”

Through connections formed and fostered by Dworkin and Cavalier, the deliberative democracy approach has been exported to Cuba, where workshops and roundtable discussions are now being held to involve citizens in the shift toward a more liberal society from the get-go.

“To cultivate [civil society] at the beginning is to ensure it at the end,” said Cavalier.