Just outside Havana, Cuba, there is a small workers town called La Lisa. It is also the home town of one of Cuba’s boxing champions, Roberto Balado Mendez, whom, after an accident was forced to retire and, with the help of Muhammed Ali, decided to open his own boxing school.

While it isn’t a fancy place, to say the least – with car tires instead of bean bags – or share the tourist glory of school in Havana, it has produced so far five national and Olympic champions.

It trains sixty teenagers – free of charge.

They are now also the proud owners of 23 pairs of boxing gloves, donated by the members of the HFPA.

As administrator Miguel Falado Alarcon would like me to forward, “Please tell your friends we cannot thank them enough. These gloves are pro-quality most of our students only see on TV or during international tournaments.”

PS: Instead of a sweating boxer, I initially tried to photograph one of my friends to model the gloves. As the last picture shows, that did not work.