March 24, 2006
Venezuela announces new mission: Mothers of the Barrio

(Venezuelanalysis.com) - "In a country where abortion is illegal, and poverty and teen pregnancy rates are high, the government's announcement of the beginning of a new social program, Misión Madres del Barrio (Mission Mothers of the Shanty towns) is welcome news.

'This is a very important mission.and the faster they start it, the better,' said Delvalle Rodríguez, a homemaker and mother of seven, who lives in La Bandera, a barrio in the south of Caracas.

The mission will have three focuses: lowering drug use among young people, fighting unintended pregnancies in girls, and offering aid to mothers who live in extreme poverty.

All were critical issues to the neighborhood, according to Rodríguez and her granddaughter's caretaker Ludíz Leiva, herself a homemaker and mother of two. 'There are lots of girls who get pregnant.many many girls.and drugs, well, that is sold everywhere. You see it everywhere. Where you go, where you walk, where you pass through, they sell it. They're lost,' said Rodríguez and Leiva, finishing each others sentences.

The other element of the mission directed specifically at mothers. 'With this mission, we want to give a hand to mothers who are in need, and homemakers without a fixed income,' said Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, when he announced the program yesterday in a barrio in the state of Vargas (...)

Since the end of 2003, Venezuela has implemented dozens of social missions aimed at alleviating poverty through expanding access to education, health care, low cost food, and cultural activities (...)".