Between 2017 and 2021 many Venezuelans found a way to leave behind the confrontation between political elites by volunteering or providing help to people with urgent needs. During this period – in which political polarisation, sanctions and humanitarian crisis coincided – Venezuela appeared in the 2022 World Giving Index as having one of the highest gains in its World Giving score. This was predominantly due to its number two ranking in the category of ‘Helping a stranger’.
This could be evidence of a collective resilience strategy in the face of crisis. Indeed, the World Giving Index states, “… the effects of the pandemic and economic hardships likely led to higher levels of charitable engagement in developing countries…”. However, the community dynamics of mutual aid, both spontaneous and organised in volunteering groups, during the most critical period of the humanitarian crisis, as well as the perception of these activities as being for the common good rather than for political instrumentalisation, could have contributed to the strengthening of resilience strategies from the communities themselves.
I started researching volunteerism not because of an academic vocation, but because of the urgent need to show others the value in a person trying to save his or her humanity through helping others – even when they themselves may have lost their livelihood and lack access to health services or decent nutrition. Below are some of my reflections and findings from living an immersive research experience from 2016 to 2022.
Popular culture and mutual aid
Mutual aid seems to be based on the religious culture of Venezuelans, as well as on features of Venezuelan popular culture. The researcher S.J. Alejandro Moreno explored the relationship between conviviality as a foundational characteristic of the family and relationships in Venezuelan neighborhoods with high participative activities. Moreno emphasised that conviviality had always been a favourable environment for generating autonomous initiatives that address the community’s own needs, interests and objectives. These initiatives are carried out through cultural mechanisms of organisation and within the community’s available resources.
So conviviality serves as a vital aspect of Venezuelan society, enabling the execution of projects and activities during times of crisis. Conviviality is described as not only fostering participation but also as an alternative form of organisation that is based on natural relational demands rather than rigid power structures. It is rooted in the traditional, matricentric and family-oriented style of the Venezuelan people.
Rethinking ‘vulnerability’
The narrative that designates people who live through humanitarian crises as ‘fragile’ and little else needs to be re-thought. The language of vulnerability is over-used in advocacy strategies to stress the need for humanitarian aid in some contexts.
However, the experience of volunteering, as studied in Venezuela, has shown that people in volunteering groups are, firstly, resilient, having abilities to endure and face adversity. In the community organisation I studied, 22 per cent of volunteers stayed for four to six years, undertaking humanitarian work; 70 per cent said they stayed two to three years. Exploring motivations for resilience, survey results showed that participants greatly appreciate the emotional, spiritual and learning benefits associated with volunteering. Access to health services and participation in community meals were also important factors that were appreciated.
Secondly, people have the capacity to add value from their own knowledge. From having skilled occupations to university degrees, people have both understanding and experience to offer. However, they have few opportunities to be part of a circle of formal training in humanitarian responses in Venezuela. Changing the vertical view in Figure 1 could create more horizontal relations among cooperation agents and communities.
The desire to give
The mobilisation and organisation of people in volunteering activities in Venezuela has occurred organically. Participation has been built by people’s desire to give. Seventy-seven per cent of people who participated in the survey declared that they had introduced one or more other people to volunteer groups.
Quantitative and qualitative research also found that Venezuelan volunteers saw benefits in volunteering, even in a such a severely troubled country. Benefits included feeling useful, obtaining personal satisfaction, feeling spiritually and emotionally supported, and acquiring new knowledge. The commodification of the relations between volunteers and their tasks seen in a short-term approach to international aid could lead to a loss of important meanings in volunteerism in the future.
In a country seriously damaged by social violence, political confrontation and the departure of more than 7.7 million, participation in community activities can also be a way for people to regroup; to find safe spaces to build social networks, to acquire new learnings and to enjoy support in an environment of crisis and uncertainty. In a context of 50% of people experiencing multidimensional poverty, loss of family and community relationships due to migration and great psychological pressures, it is significant that love is the main emotion that volunteers report when asked about their practice. That love has two roots in these groups: the perspective of Christian love for the other and the reciprocity of help expected by the relationships of coexistence in popular Venezuelan culture.
Despite the current difficulties generated n the political sphere, can the Venezualan culture of fraternity and conviviality be sustained in a social climate of uncertainty, mistrust and fear?
- Read the full Caritas Venzuela report, ‘The contributions of community volunteering in Venezuela – the experience of Caritas Venezuela’.
