Created in August 1960, its main objective was the incorporation of women into society and employment, as well as the program of social and economic changes under way in the country. Vilma Espín Guillois chaired the FMC since its inception.
She was a member of the State Council and headed the Women, Children and Youth Care Commission of the National Assembly of People’s Power, participating in the formulation of laws relating to women, discussion and drafting of the Family Code, adopted in 1975.
Upon Vilma Espín’s death in 2007, the organization’s leadership fell to the secretary general of the organization Yolanda Ferrer. In 2012, Teresa Amarelle Boué[1] was elected Secretary General.
Its coordination work can be seen in the programs implemented jointly with various ministries and government agencies, particularly the Women’s Employment Coordination Commissions, which aim to improve women’s labour participation and prevent discrimination in hiring.
These institutions, created by FMC, also offer training courses in computer skills, hairdressing, cutting and sewing, and make-up, among others, which give non-professional women and housewives the opportunity to enter social life.
The Educate Your Child Program is another of the social benefit actions addressed by the mass organization. It is aimed specifically at the attention given by the federated organizations to children from 2 to 5 years of age who do not attend institutions in the education sector to prepare children for school life for various reasons, mainly because mothers do not work and dedicate themselves to caring for their children.
In this sense, the organization has executors and social workers who ensure the participation of mothers and families in different educational and recreational activities that prepare children and the family nucleus for full incorporation into school life.
It is a mass organization that develops policies and programs aimed at achieving the full exercise of women’s equality in all spheres and at all levels of society, among other aspects.
The organization created the Women’s and Family Counselling Houses in which multidisciplinary teams made up of different specialists in psychology, psychiatry, education and social work are located with the aim of providing help to people who need to know how to lead family life, thus assuming the family as the main social nucleus where different problems and conflicts arise related to alcoholism, domestic violence, and divorces, among others, which affect the behaviour of those who make up the family, mainly minors and the elderly.
Women’s health is given priority in the Women’s and Family Counselling Houses, working on women’s awareness, for example, making them aware of the importance of cytological testing to prevent uterine cancer, breast self-examination and protective measures to prevent infection by sexually transmitted diseases, bearing in mind that medical services in Cuba are free of charge. The foregoing constitutes an important task in the work of this organization in order to meet the requirements of Cuban women at the present time.