As planned, our lecture “State Bankruptcy in Venezuela and Argentina” took place on January 24th. Around 80 attendees gathered in the seminar hall to learn about the current economic crisis affecting Venezuela, as well as the migrants who have fled the country and now live in Argentina and other neighboring states. While we primarily showed footage from our interviews with Venezuelans living in Argentina, we also called in individuals who still lived in or had recently moved back from Venezuela to provide their on-ground perspective.

At the beginning of the lecture, CheFuKo’s founder and economic journalist Takashi Asai discussed the effects of the hyperinflation in Venezuela, and described his trips to Argentina and Cuba last December where he gathered information on the crisis.

Afterwards, Mr. Asai was joined by CheFuKo’s Representative Director Mr. Kabasawa. Both individuals were present during the trip to Argentina and had many details from the trip to share.
Argentina is currently home to many Venezuelans who have been forced to leave their country to find work. Those who were business owners and lawyers in Venezuela now work as taxi drivers and grocery clerks, struggling to send their earnings to their families back home. Some Venezuelans have taken their children along with them in the hopes of receiving free education and medical treatment in Argentina. The medical infrastructure in Venezuela is poor, and children there are often forced to put finding food before education.

While every situation is unique, in all of these cases, Venezuelans were taken out of their everyday lives and thrust into a crisis where they were faced with sudden changes. We hope this lecture has shed some light on the current difficulties the people of this country find themselves in.

At the end of the lecture, a Japanese woman and her Venezuelan partner spoke in their own words about the widespread poverty and other negative circumstances affecting the local people.

These two are also involved in social programs that support children from low-income households to receive an education and participate in extracurricular activities. They shared a story about the harsh living conditions in Petare, a slum district in the capital city of Caracas where many young children live. One 15-year old boy could not attend school because he lacked an identity card known as the “homeland card”.  Two siblings who were respectively 14 and 13 years old were abandoned by their drug-addicted mother. Even in cases where both parents worked, their low salaries made it difficult to so much as consider moving out of the slums.

We would like to thank our guests for helping us understand the crisis in Venezuela through the eyes of the people.

Following the lecture, we were able to collect a total of 196,550 yen in donations thanks to the contributions of 49 attendees. As part of our Venezuelan Children’s Fund, the money will be used to support children and their families who struggle with living conditions like the ones described above. We would like to thank everyone once again for their generous contributions!