Venezuela’s remarkable social programmes: How Hugo Chavez tackled his country’s education, housing and health problems in just eight years!
By Hilma Kupila Shindondola
The postponement of President Hugo Chavez’s visit to Namibia is regrettable, because I was looking forward to meeting the man who played a key role in turning around Venezuela’s socio-economic and political landscape in just eight years.
However, whether Chavez comes to Namibia this year or some time in the future, much can be learned about his government’s remarkable achievements during the past eight years.
In this article, I intend to share with my fellow Namibians what I know about Venezuela’s social programmes under the leadership of President Chavez. This relates to education, health, housing and food security.
Education for All
Chavez and his government inherited a poor public education system. Many Venezuelans were subjected to an educational structure characterised by social exclusion and unequal access to knowledge.
The pre-Chavez regimes and their neo-liberal policies crippled the material bases of schools and compromised the quality of education of Venezuelans.
This was done through systematic privatisation of public education.
Immediately after taking power, Chavez and his government embarked upon a process of restructuring the education system. This included amongst others, increasing the budget for education in order to bring the system on par with international standards as well as to completely reform formal education. Another important strategy was the promotion and improvement of teacher/learner communication.
In addition, nutrition and food security measures were improved by providing learners with four meals a day free of charge. The food programme was implemented to lessen the burden on parents who are not able to provide a proper diet to their children due to poverty.
The educational reform therefore went through three important stages. The aim was to start with the basics, reading and writing, primary and secondary education and making access to higher education and university specialisation a reality.
Four branches of education were established to address these aims and they are as follow:
‘Mission Robinson I’ was launched in June 2003 in order eradicate illiteracy. This is a mass literacy programme which is carried out in different communities, public schools and public offices.
About 100 000 community facilitators volunteered their services. In addition, the Cuban government supported this initiative by providing manpower and other educational materials. As a result, in one year alone, 1.3 million people making up about 9 % of the population of 10 years of age and older are now able to read and write.
Due to this programme, Venezuela will soon be declared an illiteracy-free country.
‘Mission Robinson II’ was the second programme which aimed at educating people who were systematically previously excluded from accessing basic education. The basic principle behind this mission is that once a person has acquired the basics of reading and writing, he/she is then given an opportunity to complete primary education after only two years of enrolment.
The next is ‘Mission Ribas’ which was started in November 2003. It was established to make sure that those citizens who did not have a chance to complete (or never had access) to secondary education could do so. About a million Venezuelans have enrolled for this course in all parts of the country.
To be able to reach as many people as possible, the programme is designed to include distance education as well as the cooperation of different private individuals and public institutions. Students can complete this course in two years.
‘Mission Sucre’ was started to fill another historical gap. Due to the inequalities that existed in the previous educational system, many people did not have the chance to access higher education. This mission was therefore created to facilitate access to higher education.
Now, distance education training is provided in many communities through university villages that were set up in many parts of the country.
In order to make the further education programmes relevant to the needs of Venezuelans, these special university programmes were designed in conjunction with the Bolivarian University of Venezuela.
This is not only to promote decentralisation of higher education but most importantly to make the curricula relevant to the needs of the students and their communities. Half a million citizens are currently enrolled in this programme.
Healthcare for All
As in education, the Chavez government came to power during the time of the neo-liberal approach to health care that had been promoted and enforced by the previous regimes. The public health system was at the brink of collapse and many services were privatised.
The first step the Chavez government took was to stop the neo-liberal approach towards health care and to replace it with a more inclusive health and social security system.
The capitalistic health care that the Chavez government inherited was dehumanising and catered largely for the wealthy, middle and upper classes. It therefore had to be replaced with a more humanistic all-inclusive health care system.
The Chavez government believes that access to health care and social security is the duty of the state and therefore the government is obliged to make provision for that. The following steps were therefore taken to reform the health sector:
‘Mission Barrio Adentro’
This programme was adapted from Cuba and aims to offer preventive and basic health services as well as promoting healthy living in communities.
What the process entails is for the medical personnel to go and live in the communities in which they are supposed to work.
They will then be stationed in that community to diagnose and treat the main illnesses found in a particular community for free.
To complement the work of the health care personnel, health committees were established in the different communities, which were anchored by the training of community health activists.
Together, the health committees and medical staff encourage and promote basic health precautionary measures such as clean drinking water, sanitation, balanced diet, as well as sports activities.
Other medical services such as dentistry are also availed to patients at no cost. In order to release the 20 000 Cuban doctors who were responsible for implementing this programme, many Venezuelans are now being trained to become community doctors.
‘Barrio Adentro II’: This mission goes a little further than the first one and includes the establishment of rehabilitation centres in the communities. These facilities were established to receive referrals from the primary health care centres and diagnosis and offers therapy sessions as well.
Later on, ‘Barrio Adentro III’ was set up to advance the health care system by completely transforming the national hospital network in order to promote efficiency in the health care system.
Finally, ‘Mission Milagro’ came about. This programme was put in motion because Venezuela had many people who needed minor eye operations.
Due to lack of eye specialists in the country, they could not get it. A cooperation agreement was therefore signed between Cuba and Venezuela so that Cuba assists in carrying out minor eye operations needed by Venezuelans.
This programme aims to benefit the poor, people with serious eyesight problems, and the operation is carried out at no cost to the patient.
To date, about 20 000 Venezuelans have been operated on and their eyesight has been restored.
Provision of Decent Housing and Shelter
For many years, Venezuela’s poor, like many poor people in other parts of the world, were not offered satisfactory answers by the previous regimes for why they could not be provided with proper housing by the state.
The urban poor then opted to set up shelter for themselves, by constructing settlements on the fringes of large towns and cities. These settlements were usually characterised by lack of proper sanitation and general public services.
To reverse this trend, the constitution of the Bolivarian Republic established the ‘co-responsible right of every person to a decent house, with basic utilities, obliging the State to ensure it through credits for building, the acquisition or widening of houses and prioritising the sectors with lower resources’.
To deal with the housing problem, the Bolivarian government sat up a body called the ‘Urban Land Committees’ in order to provide land to the people.
The ‘Technical Boards on Water’ was set up to make sure people have access to public services. In addition, a ‘Law on the Protection of the Housing Mortgage Debtor’ was passed by the National Assembly to ensure that the poor and the middle classes also have access to credit.
In this regard, Venezuela’s Housing Ministry launched ‘Mission Habitat’ to make sure that issues of housing are given priority. The Mission intends to change the type of houses that have been provided to Venezuela’s poor for over 40 years to a decent format.
Housing structures were changed so that they do not just represent a four-wall block, but a place where the owner will feel that his/her human dignity is restored.
President Chavez’s government hopes to provide decent housing for most nationals by 2021.
In order to achieve that objective, financial and human resources will be transferred to communities in order for them to take charge of the process of housing and shelter rejuvenation.
To consolidate the participation of communities, a ‘Neighbourhood Transformation Program’ is already established in the area of the Caracas-La Guira highway.
Food Security for All
For many years, too many people in Venezuela were faced with abject poverty despite the wealth of the country. For too long, Venezuela’s agricultural and agro-industries were neglected. This led to heavy reliance on importation of food products from outside the country, which were usually more expensive than the locally produced.
Thanks to the Chavez led government, hunger and malnutrition is now almost a thing of the past for many of Venezuela’s poor.
The government came up two special programmes to ensure that there is enough nutritious food to meet the needs of the whole population. These are:
1. The ‘Special programme for Food Security (PESA)’.This is a programme that was set up to oversee the coordination of food security. It is also charged with the promotion and distribution of sowing plans as well as the production and diversification of food items.
2. The Agricultural Supplies and Service Corporation (CASA). This programme is entrusted with the purchasing and storage of crops as well as the supply of food distribution programmes. The government also protects artisan fishers, promotes agragrian reform and promotes rural development.
A programme called ‘Mission Mercal’ was established to market basic foodstuffs at a lower price. This is in order to make sure that food prices are subsidised for the poor in particular, and to distribute free food to those who cannot afford in order to strengthen local food production.
The mission buys directly from the producers, cutting out the middle man or the distribution chain in order to lower the cost for the consumer. Now the mission has established more than 2 000 supply points.
The suppliers consist of mobile grocery shops and bigger supermarkets.
Additional programmes of this mission include dining halls to which people can go and have a meal at an affordable price, food houses for the extreme poor, and school cafeterias where school children are fed.
Canteens are set up at work places to ensure that workers have access to proper meals whilst at work. There is also an ‘education and recovery programme’ which was set up to look after children with nutritional deficiencies.
To actualise all these programmes, the National Assembly passed a law on ‘land and agricultural development’ to oversee the implementation of these programmes.
Within a period of just 6 years, the government has distributed more than 2 million hectares of land to about 10 000 families.
‘The Mission Zamora’ was established to make sure that land and food is distributed in an equitable manner. The purpose is to make sure that people are not just given land, but that they are equipped with the machinery, seeds and general agricultural training.
It also plays a role in making sure that the products of new farmers and producers reach the market.
What the Chavez-led government has achieved in such a short space of time is no mean feat. Venezuela presents important lessons for us to draw on.
Equitable access to education, health, housing and food is fundamental to people’s survival.
Many people even in our country are concerned about these matters.
Venezuela’s example is therefore a new historical opportunity presented to us and it is up to us to seize these ideas and apply them to the Namibian context.
– Hilma Kupila Shindondola is the Director of the Labour Resource and Research Institute (LaRRI) in Namibia.