VENEZUELA: THE CRISIS AND THE MINES TAKE THE FUTURE OF THE COUNTRY

By Luis Alvarenga

The human, economic, cultural, social and environmental rights crisis suffered by people in Venezuela is worsening every day. It causes the quality of life of the country’s residents to deteriorate, to the point of surviving rather than living.

The lack of drinking water and the ever-increasing shortage of public transportation, food, fuel, medicines and even cash in Bolívar state prevents people from working, studying or even carrying out activities that allow them to relieve the stress caused by the country’s situation.

“John Castañeda” (name changed to protect identity) teaches at a school in Santa Elena de Uairén, the largest border town near Brazil. Both residents of the community and young people from the Pemón indigenous people study at the institution.

The teacher points out that, before the blackouts that took place in March 2019, the community had been somewhat protected from power failures because selling electricity to Brazil was a priority. However, when the Simón Bolívar Hydroelectric Plant collapsed, the region was already suffering another disaster.

The March blackout coincided with a drought and that was very difficult. No one had water or telephony. We were in the schools and we had classes with nothing but daylight because we have a policy of not suspending classes when possible. However, there was no water in the community and many students and school workers were unable to attend,” recalls Castañeda.

The teacher also explains that the economic crisis affecting Venezuelans has caused yet another growing phenomenon: school dropout. According to several NGOs, it reaches 70% in the country.

Of the school’s roughly 700 students, 6 or 8 per classroom go to the mines. These are mainly young people from the upper years, who go with their families to try to get the gramas (tiny portions of gold) that will allow them to survive for a few days.

“Before, someone who went to the mines and brought two gramas of gold could buy a lot of food, but now that’s enough for just a few days because of rising food prices,” the teacher explains.

The school in which he works has relied on partnerships to provide food service to the students, which can help them have healthy lunches, despite all the effort involved.

“We have a partnership with the School Feeding Program of the Ministry of Education, but these years we have hardly benefited from the service. This year, we sometimes get rice, black beans or pasta. Just one or two things, because protein hasn’t come for years,” he says.

Children are not spared the tragedy

Castañeda regrets that many children have gone or been forcibly taken to the mines2 to be sexually exploited for money.

“There are serious cases of prostitution here. Unfortunately, it has to be said: many girls and boys have been forced into it,” Castañeda denounces. In addition, he points out that the authorities do not allow access to or provide information4 on cases of sexually transmitted diseases in the area, despite attempts by teachers and civil society organizations to take preventive measures against this tragedy.

“It is informally known that there are many people with HIV, between 80 and 200, which for this community is a lot of people,” he warns

 The authorities’ response to this dramatic situation is non-existent. There are no prevention plans, official information is hidden and the possibilities of seeking treatment in nearby Brazilian cities are restricted.

Castañeda recalls when they closed the border in early 2019. The military blocked the passage of people with medical conditions and hospitals were not allowed to refer patients to health centres in Brazil.

The silence of the crisis

Venezuela has been recognized in recent decades as an icon in inclusive music education. The National System of Children’s and Youth Orchestras (Sistema Nacional de Orquestas Infantiles y Juveniles), known as El Sistema, stands out as the model for teaching anyone who wishes to transform their life and that of others through music.

However, the human rights crisis has left practice and concert halls in silence. Jorge Montero has a degree in Education for Cultural Development, and is a bassoon teacher and a luthier of El Sistema. He has seen how young people have been forced to give up their dreams in order to survive.

“In the National System of Orchestras, where we teach music and the luthier’s workshop, there has been too much dropping out because the high transportation costs prevent the students from attending regularly. How do they get the money to come? Sometimes they can’t and have to walk,” he says.

The classrooms where Montero teaches, when students do attend, are located in Ciudad Bolívar, capital of the homonymous state, in a complex called Bolívar Cultural Center that was built for this purpose.

“The severity of the damage caused by the March blackouts was very great, since they wreaked havoc on El Sistema’s headquarters. The water pumps broke down, so part of the schedule has been removed due to the impossibility of keeping the bathrooms working all the time we’re supposed to be in the classrooms,” Montero said.

Before the crisis affected all areas of life, the students were able to have classes every day, but due to nonpayment of teacher salaries, inadequate conditions at the facility and lack of transportation, class hours were drastically reduced to just a few per day.

“The educational services situation in Bolívar has deteriorated due to high dropout rates and irregular payments. There are many teachers who have emigrated because of the high cost of living,” Montero laments.

The teacher notes that it was at the end of May when the fuel shortage worsened in the city —despite it being the capital of the state and part of the country with the largest oil reserves in the world. This situation affects the functioning of not only El Sistema, but also of other offices in the Bolívar Cultural Center.

“We could say that we are at a complete standstill,” the luthier warns.

Montero also regrets that, due to the crisis, all possibility of education disappears and “that is when other factors detrimental to children development come into play. That would cause major damage to society as a whole.”

However, neither Montero nor the remaining teachers intend to give up.

“Those of us who still believe in Venezuela have to keep working even if it is selflessly, because we must not leave everything in the hands of politics. Unfortunately, society is looking bloody, but we have to continue fighting and do our best to keep going,” he stresses.

A future without lights?

Many students in Venezuela have had to split their days in two: one part to work and the other to study. Furthermore, for some years now, the time or attention given to classes has been cut back because of the need to help their families to secure water or food, stand in long lines to fuel their vehicles or even buy domestic gas.

Endrich Guzmán has a degree in Theology and is a law student at the Gran Mariscal de Ayacucho University in Ciudad Bolívar, where students and teachers have had to adapt to the situation by changing the class schedules.

“I study in the evenings and because of the insecurity we started to leave earlier and we changed the class schedules,” Guzmán says. He adds that after the blackouts in March 2019, the university has considered eliminating evening classes due to frequent power failures, insecurity, water shortages and lack of public transportation.

In addition, hyperinflation in Venezuela (forecast at 10,000,000% in 2019, according to the International Monetary Fund9) dilutes the salaries of teachers, who have had to engage in other activities to support their homes, which has resulted in resignations.

Guzmán points out that “the university has asked for police presence during the evenings and we have had to pressure the university not to eliminate evening classes. Besides, professors don’t want to teach so late because of the insecurity.”

Despite these problems, the student was able to overcome the obstacles using the family car. Until the fuel crisis came. Now, he has to skip classes to look for not only gasoline, but also for other methods to secure drinking water, because with the car he was able to deal with this situation more easily.

“This semester I have had to stop going to university so that I can get water for my family, because my father is an old man and I can’t leave it all to him,” Guzmán says.

In a country with dignified living conditions, refuelling only takes a few minutes. But in Venezuela, everything takes long hours out of people’s lives. In Ciudad Bolívar, the lines begin to form a day before the gasoline truck arrives, if it arrives at all. “One night they couldn’t pick me up after class because they were going to be waiting in line to refuel the car, because here it’s by license plate number, but when I got home they told me they wasted their time because the gas station had no fuel,” he says.

The consequence of these problems is evidenced in student dropout rates and teacher resignations. “From my group of friends in college 3 have left the country, but of the 50 students who started the program, this semester we are less than 16,” says Guzmán.

However, not everything is lost. There are still young people who want to solve the country’s problems, who believe in it and who struggle to survive this human rights crisis.

“I want to keep studying as long as I can. Whether or not I stay in college, I don’t plan on leaving the country. I don’t have the heart to leave my family here with this problem,” Guzmán ends.