In January of this year we were part of an eight-country Global Women’s Strike delegation to Venezuela from co-ordinating groups in England, Guyana, India, Ireland, Peru, Spain, Uganda, and US – over 70 women and men. Working with the Bolivarian revolution since 2002, our global network took advantage of Caracas hosting the World Social Forum to work together in the heart of the revolution. We wanted as many of us as possible to witness how grassroots communities, beginning with women, are spearheading a revolution and winning back their oil wealth, through an extraordinary relationship with their elected President Hugo Chávez Frías.

For decades successive ‘democratic’ governments helped the US-backed mainly white elite collaborate with multi-national corporations to steal that wealth, while the Indigenous, Black and mixed race majority lived in poverty.

President Chávez has said ‘to end poverty we must give power to the poor.’ Social programmes (called missions), based on grassroots self-activity which bypasses corrupt state institutions, are funded by Venezuela’s oil revenue. This revenue is being made available to those with least throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Even in the US, CITGO, Venezuela’s oil company there is providing heating oil to low-income communities, such as the victims of Katrina, at a 40% discount. On his visit to Europe in May, President Chávez offered the same to those of us who are poor here.