A Bust of Cuban Heroine to Be Placed in a Park in Honduras

A life-size bust of Cuban heroine Vilma Espín Guillois by sculptor Igor Lachicott Castillo, who resides in the municipality of Santa Cruz del Sur, will be unveiled in Honduras, following a request by Cuban medics who are cooperating in Central America.

Prior permission from competent authorities in the municipality of San Vicente Centenario, in Santa Barbara department, the bust will pay tribute to the Cuban heroine who fought for the liberation of Cuba from tyranny and in favor of gender equality.

Vilma’s heroic deeds are well-known in that location of Honduras because Cuban doctors have managed to tell her story among its inhabitants, said Lachicott Castillo, whose wife Arlis Arias Ponce de León is in San Vicente Centenario on a mission as a Cuban health care provider.

Arias Ponce de León filed the request on behalf of the Cuban doctors who had established a chair to promote –through lectures and discussions- the ideals of Espín Guillois, who was born in Santiago de Cuba on April 7th, 1930 and passed away in Havana on June 18th, 2007.

“It was not a request like any other, they have trusted me for the making of a bust that would be a permanent tribute to such an important women,” said the artist who created this work based on the ferroconcrete technique.

I studied a lot of pictures of Vilma to have a better idea of his face from different perspectives and decided to make the bust of her image when she was in the prime of life, he stated.

At the moment, Lachicott is doing arrangements to send this bust to Honduras. He added that a pedestal for the bust has been built in a park in San Vicente Centenario to place his work, and they are just waiting for its arrival.

Igor Lachicott Castillo studied at the “Luis Casas Romero” Vocational Art School, in the city of Camagüey, and at the National School of Arts, in the country’s capital Havana. Most of his art can be found in his hometown Santa Cruz del Sur.(AIN/Radio Santa Cruz del Sur.)