Hundreds of schools were damaged in Cuba during last year's devastating hurricane season, and now a group of international musicians is raising funds to help reconstruction work.

The "Schools Against Hurricanes" project got started with a fundraising
concert in Paris last May and is preparing for a major performance in the Cuban capital Havana.

One of the project's organizers, Raul Paz, is a Cuban musician who lives in France but is originally from Pinar del Rio, the province that suffered the most with the hurricanes.

Paz recounts, "Sometimes good ideas come out of little things. Two artists, one living in France and myself we spoke the day after the first cyclone: 'How are things? The family? Everything's fine.' And that is how we started with the idea, thinking what we could do. And that's how it happened."

The idea is to help people that unfortunately had to go through the dilemma," organizer Raul Paz told Reuters.

Musicians such as France's Yannick Noah, Florent Pangy and the Spanish singer Antonio Carmona are participating.

"I had the opportunity to participate in the first concert in Paris. And from then on it was very important for me to come to Cuba to see the place devastated by the hurricanes and to see what happened to see that all of the reconstruction work was being done here in Cuba," French musician Yannick Noah said.

The hurricanes Gustav, Ike and Paloma caused an estimated $10 billion in damage in 2008, the equivalent to 20% of Cuba's annual economic output.

Local authorities said that 600 schools were damaged in the Pinar del Rio province; some of them completely destroyed.

After touring one school in the town of Vinales, the musicians treated the school children to a short performance.

'Schools Against Hurricanes' emerged as a spontaneous project but organizers say it has collected around 800,000 Euros so far and has garnered the support of the United Nation's children's agency UNICEF.

On November 20 the performers will put on a show in Havana's Karl Marx theatre and a third concert is planned to take place this December in Seville, Spain.