Powered by IFAD

As part of a series of photo journals on how the TeleFood programme helps needy families, a resident of rural Venezuela talks about her daily life.

The idea of creating a strong but sustainable economy which ploughs the riches of oil back into the land has been a recurring theme of Venezuelan political thought. Writer and essayist Arturo Uslar Pietri, one of Venezuela's most well-respected intellectuals, was already developing his own theories on the matter in 1936 when he published a famous essay entitled: "Sowing Oil."

Margarita Island is one of Venezuela's major tourist destinations, located 50 kilometres north of the mainland. In order to protect its growing tourism industry, Margarita has to solve some water problems. The arid island gets its water from the mainland through pipes laid on the ocean floor. Many towns discharge untreated sewage into the ocean, threatening the beaches that attract tourists. But Delcan International Corporation is working with the Venezuelan government to tackle these problems.

From the election of a new student queen for Carnival to a Walt Disney film to learn math, thousands of children in Venezuela are trying to find in public education new ways to overcome their hardships-exacerbated by last December’s floods, which killed more than 20,000 people.