May 9, 2006

Ivan and I have now been in Venezuela for eight days. We spent the first five days in Caracas, where we were able to make contacts with many people. We were able to go to a few barrios that have organised themselves into co-ops. One of them was a housing co-operative where we met with the organisers and attended one of their meetings. The same co-op invited us to attend another meeting with them the next day where a number of co-ops met in the Ministry of Housing and Habitat. In both meetings we were asked to say a few words about why we were there.

Another barrio we visited in Caracas was an Endogenous Centre. This centre had 18 co-ops within it. They had a cleaning and construction crew, a shoe and a T shirt factory, a state of the art Health Clinic, a Mercal super market and in the centre of it all, a cultural area under a roof. The people there were very proud of their government, their revolution and their accomplishments.

In Caracas we also went to pay tribute to our comrades at Llaguno Bridge where just before the coup three years ago the opposition, along with the city police and snipers, shot and killed a number of their own people. Anti- Chavistas blamed it on the Chavistas to create chaos while they kidnapped the president and installed their fascist dictator for a short time. On the third anniversary of the coup (April 11, 06) a monument was erected on the bridge to commemorate those comrades who were massacred there.

We've been in Barquisimeto for two days now and we have already been able to meet with a number of people within co-ops and co-op centres. On Sunday we were taken to a small town full of craft producers. We were told that before the Chavez government people were on their own and sold their goods from their own houses. Now a new market has been built with over one hundred stalls with roofs, sidewalks, bathrooms and everything else needed so that the whole community is now under one roof in the craft market. We visited the market and were very impressed. We also stopped at a house to meet a woman who helps with her community. She explained that people can now get interest free loans for one year and with very low interest after that by organising themselves into groups and proposing various projects. She stated that her community is now very integrated and working together. Unlike in the past, there is now hope.

Yesterday we were able to go into an area where hundreds if not thousands of acres of the best land near Barquisimeto is scheduled to be expropriated either by buying it or by just taking it over. Landlords in Venezuela don’t pay property taxes. In most cases the government doesn’t even know who owns it. That’s the case with most of this land in dispute. Another issue with this land is that it’s right beside a river and because they grow sugar cane on it and burn the pulp remaining after they harvest the crop it pollutes the water which the city drinks from.

At the site where we were the mayor (Henry Falcon) was doing a TV interview explaining to the population the matter of the whole issue. The mayor is the most popular mayor in Venezuela. He starts in the early morning by going to various sites around the city; meeting with everyone responsible for doing the city’s business and making sure everything gets done. The city’s people have formed all kind of assemblies. The mayor is constantly reporting to the various assemblies on what’s taking place and towards what they want the budget to go. He wears simple people's clothes and talks to everyone who wants to talk to him. We were told there’s never been a mayor like him before. Once we were finished there in the crowd we met around 20 bus drivers who formed a co-op and were able to get funding to buy new buses for themselves. Again one could easily feel how happy and proud they were. A bus driver at the age of 47 stated he always wanted to study but that he never could because of poverty, now he says he is studying in the evenings.

What is happening here is really a rebirth of a whole country if not a whole continent. More people are getting involved, problems are being processed and solutions are being found and implemented.

The struggle continues.

Venceremos!

Randy and Ivan
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May 13, 2006

Hi friends,

Greetings from Venezuela,

I would like to thank you all for your support. Without you we wouldn’t have been able to see and do what we’re doing. We have been here for two weeks. We spent the first week in Caracas and the second in Barquisimeto, which is the capital of the state of Lara and the third largest city in the country. We have been extremely busy. We visited numerous barrios, clinics, co-ops, mercals (stores with cheap food), community organisations and the like. We have talked to hundreds of people. They have explained to us in detail how they organise, participate and are part of the process. Venezuelans refer to their revolution as "the process". The overwhelming majority of them have been totally left out of any participation in shaping their country or their lives in the past. Whenever we go to the barrios, we find that those involved in organising their community are very proud of their participation and, of course, it is the community that benefits. Just yesterday we were told that the Chavez government has distributed and fed more people in the last two years than the previous governments did in the last 40. Poverty here is an enormous problem. Most people live in very small houses that in Canada we would call shacks. In some barrios there’s no water, no paved roads and very bad transportation. Since there has been so much poverty without education, healthcare, employment and people’s involvement in the past, it will take some time before more people can contribute in a meaningful way towards building their new lives. This is the reason why the Chavez government had to ask the army for help. The army has been asked to help with all kind of social services. Many of the barrios or co-ops are assigned to specific sectors of the army to help with housing, road building, transportation and the like. Of course this mixes the military with the population at the same time the new society is being built.There’s much to see and learn. We will continue in our search to understand the Venezuelan Bolivarian Revolution and build solidarity and friendship between us.

We again thank you for your support.

Venceremos!

Randy and Ivan

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May 15, 2006

Hi friends,

Greetings from Venezuela.

This is just to give you a short report from Venezuela for our second week here. This week in Barquisimeto has been as busy as it was last week in Caracas. We have been meeting with various people involved in the process. We met a few people in a barrio who had established a brick co-op. They talked to us about their barrio, how they are involved and getting others involved. We visited a clinic and spoke to a Cuban doctor. We also visited two childcare centres and a co-op kitchen where five women feed people in need. We met an opposition member who owns 9 thousand hectares and had his daughter kidnapped for a ransom of two hundred thousand. He was quite the guy. He started by telling us that we shouldn’t go around Venezuela acting like cops. We will tell you more when we get back.

We had a chance to visit an office responsible for the state of Lara’s social services in Barquisimeto. We asked questions in regards to women, children and family issues. We met with people working in an office where citizens can go to register themselves for the first time in their life, free of charge. There was no such place before the Chavez government. Many people had no identity card. That meant no vote. We also went to a new trade school where all kinds of courses are given to anyone who wants to take them, again free of charge. We were shown a beautiful building that was a radio station and abandoned by its owners. The building has now been taken over by a co-op. They are fixing the building and will have the station running soon as a community radio station.

Although we have been very busy all the time, it has been a pleasure to be here. Venezuelans are welcoming, polite and warm. We have been witnessing for another week the process of inclusion for changing a whole society.
We hope you are all doing well.

Venceremos!

Randy & Ivan
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May 21, 2006

Hi Friends.

This was another very busy week for us here in Venezuela. No one can tell us we didn’t do enough. We visited a few more co-ops, including an office that a number of co-ops belong to. Many questions were asked and answered.

We had the privilege of travelling with a group of about 15 young people. This group has been given the equipment, a vehicle and the help of the army to go into secluded communities to take information and give ID cards to anyone who has never been registered. The information collected is also used for a census so that the government can plan according to people’s needs. In the past it was costly and time consuming for anyone to get an ID card. Now they are given on the spot with no cost. Since the government has been establishing services to the population such as: health care, education, food cost reduction, co-ops and the like, people need an ID card to get these services.

Our experience travelling with these young people was very educational. They set up in a small town at a school with all their computers, finger printing and card making machines. It took about an hour to set everything up and within a half an hour they were able to collect all the information from a person and issue their ID card. They could issue up to 300 IDs per day.The community really appreciates these young people. They are fed and looked after wherever they go.

Late in the afternoon we left the group to finish their work while we were taken to see a small coffee plantation and speak with the farmer about coffee pricing, selling and lots of other issues. On the small farm they also had a Mercal store. They stated that anyone could open a Mercal store. They simply have to have a place to sell from and ask the authorities to supply them with the foodstuff they require. The goods supplied by the central government are then sold at prices from 40 to 50% less than private stores. If some people are not able to afford the lower prices then they receive an extra cut from the prices. This insures that the whole population gets fed.

From there we were driven in the back of a pick up truck around the village of Guairo. We fell in love with this village and surroundings. The landscape was spectacular and the vegetation thick and heavy. A farmer can live on one hectare of land in this area. Coffee, mangoes and bananas grow wild there. When it was getting dark we made it into the Municipal Hall of the village where Gladis Angulo who became the Mayor three months ago received us. Again we asked many questions which she was happy to answer for us. Before the last elections three months ago Mayors had pretty much all the power to decide anything without much interference from anyone. Now a new process is in place where Mayors have to constantly consult with elected councillors and all of them have to be involved in committees which various community members are also part of. It’s a process of inclusion.

From the Municipal hall we walked with the Mayor to her house. Half an hour later some of the young people who had finished their work giving out ID cards and a few other activists from the community including a councillor joined us. We were able to talk about so much. We also introduced our project of the International Solidarity Centre, which they thought is a great idea, and would love this idea in their community.

After supper we were brought to two schools and a number of classes where people were participating in Mission Robinson (higher education program). We were introduced to each class and we conversed for some time. The next day again we were brought to various farms and coffee co-ops, a grade 1 to 4 school, a soup kitchen (casa de alimentacion) and a park with a co-op formed to clean it up. Inclusion through education, health care, unions and thousands of co-ops and missions are the backbone of this process.

We hope that this gives you a taste of what we’ve been up to.

We are now back in Caracas.
In solidarity venceremos,

Randy & Ivan