Yarnelys Bec Abalela arrived at the Abel Santamaría School for the Blind in Havana when she was just 3 years old. At that time, a congenital cataract threatened her vision. After completing ninth grade, she enrolled in a higher-level special education program and then returned to help children with a condition similar to her own. “Thanks to what I learned at this center, I was able to become a teacher,” said Bec, who has worked at Abel Santamaria for 21 years and is currently a fifth-grade teacher and therapist. Now, massive power outages and a lack of everything from eyeglasses to Braille paper mean she needs to confront a whole new set of challenges. Cuba's already inefficient state-run economy — long plagued by shortages — has descended this year into a full-blown crisis in the wake of hardened sanctions and a fuel blockade by the administration of US President Donald Trump. Thousands of students in special education schools across Cuba are suffering fuel, electricity and tra...
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