The extreme nature of sanctions against Venezuela made it very challenging to keep economic activity going. One example is Caracas’ impressive five line Metro system, where for almost twenty years they had to keep things running with no spares or maintenance support from the train manufacturers.

Yet resilience and ingenuity kicked in, and Venezuela actually reverse engineered and manufactured parts – the need to do this in the oil sector also created a burgeoning small foundry industry, for example. Eventually, sanctions will stimulate domestic production. I spent some time with the Metro looking at how this happens.

As ever we need to spread the load and please we are looking primarily to those who have never donated or contributed before. Our Gofundme link for the Venezuelan operation is here:

This is the same crowdfunding account we used for Lebanon so discount the first £35,000 raised as it was spent in Lebanon.

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Venezuela GoFundMe