A third term as President of Venezuela beckons for man who looks after the poor THEY arrived in a steady stream throughout the morning, bearing with them a stack of Tupperware-style containers and the expectation of a decent feed. Young and old, women and men, they handed over their tubs and then took them back, steaming full of rice, chicken and soup.
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In places such as the scruffy neighbourhood of El Guarataro, scores of " missions" have been established using the country's oil wealth to help feed and educate the poor. The Independent on Sunday was escorted on a tour by Mariella Guzman, a 53-year-old Chavez activist who two-and-half years ago established a government soup kitchen which feeds 150 people, six days a week.
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Another woman, Damari Briceno, who arrives every morning at 6am to help prepare the food, spoke of an adult education class she was taking - another mission set up by the Chavez government. "It sets an example to others to do the same because you're a mother or a grandmother," she said. The various missions - there are almost 20 different types in all - have had real results, reducing poverty, increasing access to free health and subsidised food and helping teach 1.5m adults to read. Unesco has praised the country's efforts in this area and estimated that the adult literacy rate stands at around 93 per cent.
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Mark Weisbrot, director of the Washington-based Centre for Economic and Policy Research which has collated government data, said: "Chavez is going to win reelection because he has delivered quite a lot on his promise to share the country's oil wealth with the poor - which are the majority of the population. His anti-poverty efforts are certainly bigger than anywhere else in the hemisphere."
Andrew Buncombe in Caracas
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2035204.ece
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