Lisa Valenti

Lisa Valenti has traveled to Cuba over twenty times, each time without applying for or accepting a license from the US Treasury Department. She is the founder and president of the national US Cuba Sister Cities Association, President of the Pittsburgh Matanzas Sister City Project, National Co Chair of the Cuba Action Committee of WILPF, and founder of the Pittsburgh CUBA Coalition. She also serves as a consultant, and most recently facilitated the University of Pittsburgh's Semester at Sea to go to Cuba bringing the largest number of US students (over 700) ever to go to Cuba. She has traveled extensively as a public speaker on the US blockade of Cuba throughout the US as well as Canada, Mexico, Britain, Brussels and the Netherlands.

Lisa has been an active participant on each of the IFCO/Pastors for Peace US-Cuba Friendshipment Caravans. Lisa was one of the fasters on two historic campaigns of IFCO/Pastors for Peace: the 23-day fast, which won the release of the Little Yellow School Bus destined for Cuba, which had been seized by the US Treasury Department (1993); and the 94-day Fast for Life, which won the release of 400 medical computers also destined for Cuba and also impounded by the US government (1996). In describing her participation with the IFCO/Pastors for Peace US-Cuba Friendshipment Caravans, Lisa explained, "Its what I do to put my deepest prayers for peace into action."