Machado to teachers: Venezuela needs them organized

Opposition leader María Corina Machado This Saturday he called on teachers to organize for a free Venezuela which – he assured – “is coming soon”, in which “they will be protagonists” of the construction of the “best public education system in the world.”

«Venezuela needs you, firm, determined, organized, sowing hope and confidence in your classrooms and in all your communities. In this new Venezuela that is emerging, teachers are going to be the backbone of society, well trained and paid, with social security as they deserve,” Machado said in an audio shared on social networks.

He stated that educators “They represent the great hope for the profound change that Venezuela urgently needs”.

“You, the teachers, have defended our children and young people during these years of darkness, lies and violence, you have protected them from a systematic attack, from a system that sought to change our history, destroy our symbols and invert our values,” said.

My message to the teachers and professors of Venezuela who are a bulwark of our struggle:

Raise your heads and your voices with pride; we need them!
Venezuela will be free; We advance, hand in hand with God, until the end! pic.twitter.com/XGh7XQfH6u

— María Corina Machado (@MariaCorinaYA) October 12, 2024

Machado expressed his deep admiration for the teachers

In that sense, he continued, these professionals, despite the “hunger wages”, have “remained at the forefront of this fight, with an infinite vocation and dedication.

«I know that many of you went out of your own pocket to take some materials to your classrooms, or even shared your food with your students. “You have witnessed how the educational infrastructure collapses, how our children go to class without the essential food or clothing, without the basic instruments to train them,” he noted.

Machado expressed his “deep admiration and affection” for the teachers, whom Venezuela -he maintained- “you need them organized and active” in “this decisive hour.”

“You were decisive in the immense victory of July 28, (…) and today you continue to be so, in this stage of the fight to assert the truth,” he added, in reference to the victory that – he insists – was obtained by the flag bearer of the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD) -main opposition coalition-, Edmundo González Urrutia, in the presidential elections.

In those elections, Nicolás Maduro was proclaimed the winner by the National Electoral Council (CNE) based on results which has not yet published in a disaggregated manner.

Recently, Maduro promised a set of aid to public sector teachers, without explaining whether this plan includes a salary increase, which has been the central reason for the protests that this union has staged in the last eight years, when, according to estimates of the collective, thousands of teachers left the country due to the economic crisis.

The Center for Documentation and Social Analysis of the Venezuelan Federation of Teachers (Cendas-FVM) calculated that the average salary of a teacher per month is about 21 dollars at the official exchange ratewhich it considers insufficient to cover the cost of the basic food basket, calculated in August by the organization at 107.8 dollars per person.