The prominent radio programme director, Caridad Martínez, who worked for more than six decades at Radio Progreso, passed away on Sunday, the station’s general director, Yuzaima Cardona Villena, confirmed in X.

«A woman of light is gone, her fruitful work remains. Condolences to the family and to Radio Cubana, which suffers this sensitive loss,» Cardona Villena said on the social network X, Cardona Villena.

In an interview granted in 2022 to the website La Onda de la Alegría, Martínez said that, in her early days, she hosted the programmes Correo Campesino, En la tienda del pueblo, Fiesta guajira, Por nuestros campos y ciudades, Actualidad mundial, Cuba en el mundo and Aventuras del mar.

There he worked «with figures of the stature of Carlos Felipe González Más, Julio Batista, Juanita Calderilla, Rolando Leyva, the whole cast of singers and musicians of the Guajira programmes and other greats of the medium, who revealed their most intimate ‘secrets’ to me».

Caridad Martínez received multiple awards during her career, including first place in orientation programmes for Francamente, during the National Radio Festival, in 1997; and the First Prize and Grand Prize for the programme that best reflected the thoughts of José Martí, in 1998, at the same event.

In 2000, he received the Caracol Award from the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (Uneac) for directing the radio soap opera Viento sur; the Diploma for artistic merit from the University of the Arts (2002); the Caribbean Broadcasting Union Award (2004) and the Maestro de Juventudes from the Hermanos Saíz Association, in 2020.