VAMOS!

Vamos is a New Zealand solidarity network formed in March 2008

During a week long tour of Aotearoa by Venezuelan Charge d'affairs from Canberra and top diplomat for the Pacific Region, Nelson Davila, communities came together in Wellington, Christchurch, Ruatoki, Rotorua, Hamilton and Auckland to hear about how:

• Hugo Chavez's Venezuela is putting human beings at the centre of government policy, not th "almighty dollar".
• Mass illiteracy has been eliminated in just nine years.
• Free quality medical care now reaches everyone in the poor areas who, before Chavez became president in 1999, had never seen a doctor.
• Venezuela's indigenous peoples have seen their stolen lands returned and now get state funding for sustainable co-operatives.
• "Workers management" and "socialism of the 21st century" are central themes of government policy.
• 20,000 state-funded communal councils have been elected to take control of their localities in a major power shift from the elites to the grassroots.
• Venezuela is becoming a global pole of grassroots opposition to the US world order.
  

In short, the democratic, socialist revolution led by Hugo Chavez is not only boosting the living standards and human rights of the vast majority of Venezuelans, but also changing the unjust power relationships of the old society.

There is still serious inequality in Venezuela, though the number living below the poverty line has fallen from 60% of total population to less than 30% during the term of the Chavez government. There is still a long way to go, but the direction is positive and the pace is accelerating.

As Nelson Davila put it "Think of the Venezuelan Revolution as a climb of 20 steps, and we are now on step four."