Cuba filling in the blanks

I mentioned the Barrio Adentro program in an earlier entry when I was describing my visit to the barrio in Merida. Here are some more details about these social programs. It is clear that without the collaboration with Cuba, these programs would not be close to the level they have reached already. An important thing to think about is; how fast can economic change happen? especially when the government has had to survive a coup and a strike that shut down the economy for over two months, and hostility from the elite owned press.

Venezuela provides very inexpensive oil to Cuba, and in exchange Venezuela is getting a huge leg up on it`s social programs.

This morning in the plaza outside my hotel I chatted with a woman and her daughter. The woman`s parents were from Columbia, but she grew up in Ven. and studied medicine for 6 years in Cuba. Now she is teaching medicine here in Berinas. Cuba is apparently still the best place to study medicine in this area of the Americas, 1,200 Venezuelan students were studying Medicine in Cuba as of 2004. When Venezuelan medical students return, they have many options for employment. The Venezuelan government is hoping to replace the Cuban doctors who are currently working in the Barrio Adentro programs.
When the Barrio Adentro program was in it`s beginning stages, the city authorities advertised in the daily papers for doctors. The response fell short of what they needed, which was to provide "preventative health care to one million Venezuelans living in underprivileged areas". There was not nearly enough interest in a position where you have to live in the barrios, be available day and night, work for the city council, and all for less than $200 a month (McCaughan,193). The best solution was to bring in hundreds of Cuban doctors.
Another group of Cubans were also brought in to facilitate a literacy program, called Plan Robinson. The program is three months long, is based around family ties and popular games, and uses video for instruction. Cuba provided the instruction videos and 50,000 TVs and VCRs for the program free of charge. "There are 74 Cuban technical advisers who monitor the progress of 50,000 Venezuelan literacy volunteers (McCaughan, 193)"
"By 2005 there were 20,000 Cuban doctors, teachers, dentists, laboratory technicians and sports instructors volunteering in Ven. the latter providing aerobics classes for the young women, stretching classes for the pensioners, and chess games for the pre-teens"(McCaughan, 194).

The above are some notes from Micheal McCaughans`s The Battle of Venezuela.