Notes- The Women's Studies Dept. and La Vega

Last week I visited both the Women's Studies Department at the Central University of Caracas, and a barrio called La Vega in the same day, with a Global Exchange Women's Delegation.

The situation of Venezuelan women sounded bleak as the Women's studies professor spoke about the high birth rates, lack of birth control used and accessible, the increasingly young age of girls getting pregnant and in prostitution. The aggravating factor she said, is that since the 80's poverty has increased. Also, sixty percent of women living in poor areas are the head of their households, raising their families without a partner.

After that meeting, we climbed a hill in a bus to the barrio of La Vega, a community that has been strong and organized for almost 30 years. Located on the crest of a hill, La Vega looks down over the Caracas valley. There was a Barrio Adentro (health clinic) and a Mercal (subsidized grocery store) at the top where we parked. We then went into a home that was a home and also operated as a Center for Nutrition Mission. The women there cook meals and snacks for 150 people Monday through Friday. The people who receive the food are selected by a community committee and the Barrio Adentro doctor. The program is meant to reduce mal nutrition, it involves high calorie meals and after three months if a person has put on enough weight, they will leave the program. The food is payed for by the government, and the women who cook get paid $90 a month.

One of the women spoke to us about La Vega. She explained:
There have always been living here in this area, but it has only been very full for thirty years. She said that ever since she was a little she was taught that communities organize themselves. We began to organize because there were problems with delinquency, and no water. We started organizing for necessities like water.
In 1974 President Calos Adres Perez had temporary housing built there out of cardboard and zinc with communal bathrooms. He promised to eventually building sturdy structures elsewhere, but never did.
Eventually the government built very small square brick houses, and water piping. There was not water for 8 years.
The community decided to take things into their own hands, so they kidnapped the director of the water system and kept him in La Vega until he understood their need. Now they get water three days a week.
From what I understood, there is not a lack of water in the city, the infrastructure is just insufficient.

The La Vega organized a committee of security, because the community had been ruled by drug dealers. The struggle was also against the police, who brought drugs and arms to the youth.
The people decided to sit the drug dealers down and tell them what needed to happen.
Their demands were:
They could not use drugs like crack in the community.
They made an agreement the the smoking had to be outside the neighborhood.
They could not sell drugs in the neighborhood because of all of the children around.
Below a certain level on the hill, they could sell out for their houses, but not on the streets and not to kids.

The police were another problem. They would harass everyone, beat people, put them in jail, steal money.
So the community met with the police and made an agreement that they would not enter their barrio. This meeting was not sufficient on its own, they also had to use collective force to protect their community from police attacks. "All of the encounters with the police were violent, and we had to do that so that they would respect us. After so many years of the the community coming out united to defend the community members, the police do not come up here.
The last encounter with the police was when a young guy was taken out of the land cruiser he was driving and beaten up further down the hill, below the La Vega barrio. He is a member of the community's video collective, which has a lot of video making equipment and a vehicle. The cops thought that he had stolen the car, or perhaps just beat him up because he is black. One person from the community ran up the hill to gather people, and many came down to his aid. They threw rocks at the police, and smashed their vehicles. They also called the police commander who they had made an agreement with, and he was able to stop some of the backup that was being sent to back up the police. The people continued being violent until the police left, and when they did leave, it was with broken windshields and popped tires. She explained that the people would not have stopt at anything until the police left. She said "That is an example of how we make ourselves respected.
When answering a question about why Chavez has not made faster progress in eliminating corruption in the police force, she said, "This is a revolutionary process, not a revolution. Everythitng has happened democratically so it is much slower."

This community takes discipline into it's own hands. If a youngster is robbing, the community members will find him, sit him down, tell him what they think, tell him that he is not allowed to do this. If he does it again, they will beat him up. Depending on the offence, they may throw him out of the barrio.
La Vega is made up of 22 communities, and they also try to organize and aid other communities close by. They don't only provide armed back up, they also help out the other communities with theater and community art programs.
She explained that "We criticize the government. In no way will we defend anything that the gov. does and says." I Think that we are all different, what unites us is love, you have to incite love. The more united we are the more we can fight. Fight a system of poverty all around the world. One person cannot lead the struggle. Unite to your community in love."

After this talk, we went to the house of the Media Collective. It is a project that has grown strongly due to the support of a Venezuelan guy who went to college in the US, and now lives in La Vega. They have created about 5 films, and we were able to watch one of them. They do very good work and many of the young people are very busy and involved with the collective.