- Title: PERSONAL: Former Chavez supporter leads fight against child hunger in Venezuela
- Date: 9th July 2024
- Summary: MARACAIBO, ZULIA, VENEZUELA (JUNE 12, 2024) (REUTERS) FOUNDER OF "ALIMENTANDO UN SUENO" (FEEDING A DREAM) FOUNDATION "CAROLINA LEAL (LEFT) CARRYING FABIAN CHILD AND TALKING WITH FOUNDATION WORKER (RIGHT) LEAL CARRYING FABIAN FABIAN'S FOOT VARIOUS OF FABIAN BEING WEIGHED AND MEASURED VARIOUS OF FOUNDATION WORKER CARRYING FABIAN MOTHER OF FABIAN, ELENA DE BLANCO, CARRYING FA
- Embargoed: 23rd July 2024 12:15
- Keywords: Venezuela Zulia children election politics poverty
- Location: MARACAIBO, ZULIA, VENEZUELA
- City: MARACAIBO, ZULIA, VENEZUELA
- Country: Venezuela
- Topics: South America / Central America,Government/Politics,Elections/Voting
- Reuters ID: LVA001568202072024RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: In Altos de Milagro Norte, an impoverished neighborhood north of Maracaibo in western Venezuela, Carolina Leal, founder and director of the Alimentando un Sueno (Feeding a Dream) foundation, holds in her arms Fabian, a one-year-old boy who weighs just four kilos.
After a quick check of Fabian's weight and height, Carolina and the child's mother take the car and rush to the nearest hospital for a medical check-up. Fabian's diagnosis is severe malnutrition and danger of respiratory arrest.
Leal, 47, says his foundation receives at least two cases of malnourished children a week.
Some 50% of Venezuelan households live in poverty, according to a national poll carried out by the Universidad Catolica Andres Bello, and 41% of those polled said they skip one meal per day.
Leal speaks frankly and says she was a loyal supporter of the revolution and the late former president Hugo Chavez and his successor Nicolas Maduro, but after seeing members of her community starving to death, she stopped supporting them.
"I come from defending the revolution... I got tired of seeing people die of hunger... The politicians have been the destruction of our country," Leal said as she carried a one-year-old boy who was in her care after being abandoned by his biological mother.
Children holding food containers walk to the soup kitchen, queuing to eat. Leal, along with a foundation worker, hands out bowls of soup. The foundation serves about a thousand children, mothers, and elderly people from various neighborhoods in Maracaibo.
Leal expresses his frustration and regrets that the government is using poor families in the run-up to the elections.
"They give people a bag of food a day before the election so people go and vote for them... Those who suffer the consequences are the children, the most vulnerable," Leal said.
Venezuela will hold a presidential election at the end of July, where Maduro, who has been in power since 2013 and is seeking his second reelection, has presided over economic collapse, with a loss of 73.3% of Venezuela's gross domestic product since he has been president, according to researchers from the Institute of Superior Administration Studies in Caracas.
Hunger is a familiar specter in Venezuela, which suffered years of hyperinflation in the second half of the last decade as the government of Maduro printed money to pay its debts amid a slowdown in oil prices.
Many Venezuelans were left to scour through garbage to find food, and millions fled the country to build new lives across South America and beyond.
Meanwhile, amid the political battle and economic crisis, Leal says she will continue to focus on saving the most vulnerable: the children.
(Production: Efrain Otero, Mariela Navas, Liamar Ramos) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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