Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/12/venezuela-earthquake-ratt_n_284733.html
Over the past 10 days, we’ve met some incredible peace and media activists around Caracas. Here are a few scenes from the city we’ve come to call home.
Today, we met with Charlie Hardy, the Cowboy of Caracas. He moved to Venezuela in the early 1980’s, and lived in squalid conditions amongst the city’s urban poor. In this short except, he explains what it was like to live in Venezuela in 1989, and how society has changed since then.
The delegation went to Tiuna el Fuerte, an endogenous cultural zone, that teaches kids from the barrio basic BBoy, video, and art skills. Their project is made from reclaimed materials repurposed to suit their needs.
Today, the delegation visited two different sites in Venezuela. The first was a worker-fun Coca Cola factory. The second was an occupied apartment building. The boom and bust cycle of the 1980’s left many of Caracas’s downtown apartments abandoned. People without homes took them over, and run a cooperative housing association in the unfinished highrises.
Two of the Iraq War Veteran from our delegation were invited to do a live interview on TeleSur. They talked about bi-lateral U.S. relations, and reflected on the need for an active media exchange between social groups in the U.S. and Venezuela.
Today we visited the local universities to talk with student activists.
