HEALING VENEZUELA
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Mission Statement
Healing Venezuela is an award-winning international charity established in 2016 in the UK. Our mission is to mitigate the health crisis in Venezuela providing the best possible medical care to the 90% of Venezuelans who live below the poverty line. The charity is run by volunteers, we don't have staff and our offices are our homes. This is why 92% of the funds go to our programmes in Venezuela. The remaining 8% is for organising fundraising events, designing and printing awareness material and accounting. We have expanded our reach by registering in Lyon, France, and the US as a 501(c)(3) in 2022. We have also active volunteers in Spain, Germany, Australia and Northern Ireland. Our key programmes include: 1. Scholarships for Junior Doctors, 2. Clean Water in Hospitals, 3. Food Security for Children 4. Reproductive Health 5. Medical Equipment Donation 6. Sustainability We've collaborated with the Office of International Migration (IOM) under the United Nations and serve on the advisory board of the Diaspora Emergency, Action, and Coordination (DEMAC), an international initiative backed by USAID and IOM. Our core values are: 1. Transparency: in the way we operate and the way we manage our funds. 2. Gratitude: there are no small donations, we are grateful to all our supporters. 3. Respect: we respect different points of view as our mission is humanitarian and therefore is centred on saving lives, irrespective of political views, gender, race, age or any form of discrimination. 4. Commitment: we believe that commitment is crucial to keep the charity running. 5. Collaboration: Healing Venezuela is the result of teamwork of people whose main interest is to help Venezuela. We have a zero-tolerance policy against bullying, lack of transparency and discrimination.
About This Cause
THE PROBLEM Venezuela is grappling with a profound economic, social, and political crisis, severely affecting its healthcare system, resulting in massive shortages in public services and escalating challenges in accessing food. Notably, 90% of Venezuelans live below the poverty line, with 76% in extreme poverty. UNICEF's recent report reveals that children's chronic malnutrition has surged to 26%. Over 19 million individuals require humanitarian aid, 80% lack access to potable water, and state hospitals are functioning at under 70% of their capacity. Given these staggering figures, it's unsurprising that over 7 million have fled Venezuela, marking the most significant humanitarian crisis in the Americas and second only to Syria globally. THE SOLUTION Established in 2016, Healing Venezuela began as a small family charity. We collected still-functional medical supplies discarded by European health centres and sent them to Venezuelan hospitals. From these beginnings, we've evolved into an internationally recognized charity registered across four nations. Our Programmes Include: 1. Sponsorship of Junior Doctors: Based on recent statistics from Venezuelan research centres, 33% of senior doctors have left the country due to the crisis. One of the consequences of this brain drain is that state hospitals increasingly rely on junior doctors. Since 2018, Healing Venezuela has sponsored junior doctors in hospitals in densely populated cities. This effort results in care for an estimated 120,000 patients annually while fostering these junior doctors' career growth. More than 400 junior doctors have benefited from our programme and more than 200 have already graduated. 2. Potable Water in Hospitals: Despite Venezuela's abundant water resources, 80% of its citizens lack clean drinking water. We've set up three major water treatment plants in hospital kitchens, significantly curbing water-borne diseases. We've also added smaller water treatment units in crucial hospital areas such as an intensive care unit, a delivery room and an operating theatre. Thanks to this programme, 50,000 patients, staff and visitors have access to safe and clean water each year. 3. Malnutrition Prevention: In response to alarming malnutrition rates, we launched a programme in Guaraunos village in 2019. Collaborating with the local community, we've consistently supplied nourishing meals to 100 at-risk children. Consequently, while national child malnutrition stands at 26%, it's just 4% in Guaraunos. 4. Reproductive health: since 2018, we've run reproductive health programmes, including awareness courses on gender equality and gender-related violence prevention. To date, we have supported over 2,500 women to choose when to have children and educated communities in impoverished areas of Venezuela on reproductive health. 5. Medical Equipment Donations: Given the deteriorating state of Venezuela's hospital infrastructure, we've donated/ repaired 22 vital medical devices since 2017, benefitting over 10,000 individuals. More recently, we have donated 3 portable ultrasounds to the Razetti Medical School in Caracas and facilitated the training of 20 senior doctors in this advanced technology. 6. From Aid to Self-Sufficiency: In 2019, we started a malnutrition prevention programme in Guaraunos, a village in Sucre State, feeding 100 children every day. The programme has been so successful that the malnutrition rate in the village is 5% versus 26% nationally. As we have achieved our humanitarian objective, we are now transitioning to sustainability running a pilot to support 8 women from the village to develop their own agriculture business. As the village's economy improves, those vulnerable children who are still in need will be taken care of by the villagers and our direct aid will terminate in July 2025. OUR TEAM A board of multidisciplinary professionals, all volunteers, run the charity. We operate predominantly through volunteers across our registered countries, ensuring that 92% of funds directly impact our ground initiatives. In Venezuela, our medical advisor and project coordinator oversee our programmes' execution. In the UK, an administrator supports the day-to-day running of the charity. More than 30 volunteers in different countries actively support Healing Venezuela. Our patrons, Lord Nigel Crisp, former CEO of the NHS, and Prof Michael Adler CBE, hold esteemed global positions in the medical sector. One of the founders and now Patron was Editor and Chairman at The Economist and Deputy-Governor of the Bank of England. OUR ACHIEVEMENTS Through our current and previous programmes and our partners, we have positively impacted over 1.5 million people in Venezuela, more specifically: we supported 257 junior doctors in 8 hospitals across the country, serving 120,000+ patients each year we installed 3 potable water plants in large hospitals, providing every year 50,000+ people access to drinking water we donated 30 pieces of life-saving medical equipment donated to hospitals and other public health institutions and introduced in Venezuela portable ultrasounds we have distributed more than 400K+ meals to children at risk of malnutrition we have supported more than 2,500 adolescents and adult women to have access to reproductive choices AWARDS In 2019, we won the CharityClarity Charity Start-Up of the Year award. In 2021, we were shortlisted for the prestigious Times Charity Awards in two categories. In 2024 we won the GlobalGoodAward jointly with UNICEF in the Humanitarian Response category. INTERNATIONAL PARTNERS AND AWARENESS Our collaborations extend to the United Nations, we are on DEMAC's advisory board, and other Venezuelan diaspora humanitarian charities. Part of our work is raising awareness and we have been invited to speak on TV, the House of Parliament and several universities.