First, welcome President Obama to the Magic City. South Florida is filled with people from all over the world -- many of them, like generations of Cuban exiles, arrived here seeking freedom.

That's why your fund-raising stop at the home of Gloria and Emilio Estefan carries such enormous potential.

After 51 years of dictatorship, Cubans on the island are crying out for change. And you astutely captured that angst last month when you spoke up for human rights and the Ladies in White, the wives, mothers and daughters of Cuba's political prisoners. Your censure of the Cuban regime's repression came a month after political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo died during a hunger strike -- a death that shook the world's conscience and sparked a march in Miami led by the Estefans in defense of human rights.

Your call for Cuba to release its political prisoners echoed leaders in Europe and Latin America. It's important that your administration work in concert with the European Union and Latin American democracies to keep the pressure on Raúl and Fidel Castro, especially as more dissidents like Guillermo Fariñas are now on hunger strikes to press for prisoners' freedom. As happened in South Africa when democratic nations united against apartheid, this is a critical juncture for Cuba.

Beyond the talk, though, your administration has the opportunity to energize Cuba's civil society. And technology, as we all have seen with the rise of bloggers like Yoani Sánchez and cellphones given by foreigners to Cubans on the island, can serve as freedom's portal.

Short-wave radios were fine a decade ago for Cubans to get information denied to them by the regime. Today a new generation is poised to speak out and connect with one another with the help of laptops, cellphones and smart phones that can link them to websites and even to the U.S.-funded Radio and TV Martí.

The point now is for U.S. policy to be smart policy, 21st century style. Not a giveaway to Cuba's dictators, but also not a closed door to people-to-people exchanges that millions of Cubans yearn for. Your loosening of family travel and remittance rules set the right tone.

But since the December arrest in Cuba of Alan P. Gross, an American working for a U.S. Agency for International Development contractor who was helping Jewish groups in Cuba, the USAID programs helping civil society groups and political prisoners' families have been stalled. Recently, USAID contractors were told to keep on working, but Sen. John Kerry put a hold on $20 million in the pipeline.

Mr. President, you should persuade Sen. Kerry that your administration has made clear changes in the way it lets out contracts. Today the State Department and USAID are working closer together than ever before. They are vetting each program for its effectiveness, and human-rights groups with vast experience helping civil society groups throughout the world now are working with Cubans.

The focus should be for the money to reach Cuba to ``grow'' civil society there -- not stay with groups in Miami as happened before. These programs should encompass everything from microloans for people to start their own small businesses and free themselves of the regime's stranglehold on entrepreneurship to helping women, minorities and religious people learn the leadership skills to solve problems in their communities.

With your leadership, Mr. President, Cubans can push for change from within.