Why Believe in Venezuelans?
I never imagined that my article “Don’t Speak Ill of Venezuelans!” would have the impact it did. Anyone who read through the readers’ comments could see how many people (very few compared to all those who love Venezuela and its people) spoke ill of their country and of their fellow Venezuelans.
How painful! And, as so often happens, they committed an injustice by judging everyone by the actions of a few. Today, to back up my previous article with more precise facts, I will try to answer, in this short space, the question: why can we believe in Venezuelans?
A few days ago I attended a Mass celebrated for a summer camp of more than a hundred girls from poor neighborhoods of Caracas, who had been given scholarships by other Venezuelans so they could enjoy an unforgettable vacation.
Like that camp, there are hundreds of others all over Venezuela right now, where many people have volunteered their time, unpaid, to find the resources to set up and run these spaces for fun and for education in values, for children from low-income communities.
Today I want to recall the National Gathering organized by Fundación Entre Líneas in 2003, in the Plaza Real Ballroom of the Hotel Eurobuilding, at a time when many Venezuelans felt as if they were in a tunnel with no way out.
That day, more than fifty volunteers set out to show the positive face of our country through the thousands of people who, for many years, have worked “silently and tirelessly” for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans all over the country.
More than six hundred people from every walk of life attended that gathering, along with more than fifty NGOs, such as Dividendo Voluntario para la Comunidad, Fe y Alegría, IAVE Venezuela, FI- PAN, Salud y Familia, Fueduca, SOS Children’s Villages, the Salesian Ladies’ Association, Cáritas Venezuela, Cesap, IPEF, Proideas, Incap Los Samanes, the Venezuelan Support Network for Justice and Peace, Venamcham, the Cantv Retirees’ Volunteer Corps, TV Familia, Fundana, Adalive, the Venezuelan American Association of University Women (VAAUW), and the Ladies and Society of Saint Vincent de Paul; and foundations such as La Salle Natural Sciences, the Children’s Orthopedic Hospital, Bigott, Vivienda Popular, Amor, Bambi, Center, Friends of Children with Cancer, Bengoa, Atenea, Funadahinfa, Tamayo and Guatoco, among others.
What made an impression that day was not only the work (little known to the general public) of these extraordinary nonprofit organizations that help so many people, but also the testimonies given in the afternoon session, in which participants (mostly middle- and lower-class people) spoke about the initiatives they were carrying out in their poorest communities.
I especially remember the testimony of a very humble young woman who had two children with cerebral palsy (from birth) and who created a foundation to help mothers in the same situation.
To close the gathering, we had the great honor of hearing from Brother Ginés, the Spaniard who loved Venezuela madly and worked for our people for more than seventy years, sowing education and values in a way impossible to measure (with the help of many other invaluable Venezuelans). That day he encouraged us to keep going, without losing heart, without playing the game of despair and hatred. He repeated his famous saying: “Onward and upward, even when the slope is steep and sometimes slippery.”
Well, here we are, Brother, still hard at work and following your advice! Because of that gathering, many who had been thinking of leaving (and could have) stayed, and began working for their people in one of those foundations, or started a new one.
And to those who do not believe in Venezuelans, I say that today there are more than a thousand social organizations working for all Venezuelans (regardless of their political, social or cultural background) throughout Venezuela; and that is not counting the major social projects of large companies with deep Venezuelan roots, the great social work of the Church, and the countless personal initiatives no one could ever tally.
I hope these few lines have shown you that there are many Venezuelans to whom we should “take off our hats,” and in whom we can believe and place our hope.
And always remember that the grain of sand each of us can contribute is a great deal. So let us go forward in faith, “onward and upward,” because Venezuela and all our fellow Venezuelans need us more than ever.