PRIDE OF VENEZUELA
Inspirational person of the year:
Federica Dávila
15.12.2017
By Azucena Moran (MIA 2018) and Racien Nowak (MPP 2018)
By Azucena Moran (MIA 2018) and Racien Nowak (MPP 2018)
Once again, Hertie School
students were asked by Handelsblatt -Germany’s leading business newspaper-
to elect the “Person of the Year” in a school-wide online vote organised by The
Governance Post. Their choice: Federica Dávila, a Venezuelan student who helped
found the Green Cross, a group of medical students and doctors dedicated
to providing first aid to the victims of government-sanctioned
brutality.
Federica Dávila is a child of Latin America’s magic
realism—not García Márquez’s magic realism, but Uslar Pietri’s, the one that
claimed history only really exists when you touch it. She was born in Caracas,
Venezuela in 1994, and since then, she has grown to be part of a generation
that has taken the country’s crisis into their own hands, trying to fill the
void left by Nicolás Maduro’s government. Kind, tenacious, and surprisingly
unpretentious; her mother often teases her saying that she learned how to say
“medicine” even before she learned how to pronounce “mom and dad.” She is one
of the co-founders of the Green Cross, a group of medical students and doctors
who were in the front-lines of this year’s protests against Maduro’s regime,
saving around 5,000 lives—both of civilians and governmental officials.
Not being interested in politics is a privilege that
Venezuelans cannot really afford. Back in 2014, she took the streets of Caracas
together with thousands of citizens, mostly students, rallying against the rise
of violence, state-repression and the country’s pliant economy. In the midst of
the demonstrations, she stumbled upon the complete absence of emergency care—a
crude reality that left her frantic and restless, and her counterparts,
vulnerable and exposed. “Some of the patients arrived at hospitals, and it was
too late. Sometimes the injuries weren’t that severe, and their deaths could
have been prevented,” she explained during a Skype interview.
The road ahead seemed to be rickety for Venezuela,
so she decided, together with Hipólito García and Asdrúbal Moreno, to create
the Green Cross. Years later, in 2017, she started leading the team together
with Daniella Liendo. From the protests in 2014 to those in 2017, the
organisation grew from having 40 volunteers to more than 250—among them not
only students but also experienced doctors. The support they received came
mostly from the Venezuelan diaspora; donations of medicine and medical supplies
were sent from all over the world.
By 2017, the magnitude of the crisis had
escalated—however, many of the students who volunteered in 2014 had been forced
to leave the country and were not able to participate in the humanitarian
response given this year. The world’s highest inflation rate, crumbling
hospitals, a defeating uncertainty about the country’s future, food and drug
shortages, had all become the symbols of a country’s uncertain future: In March
Maduro dissolved the legislative power and weeks later convened a new
constituent assembly. The risk of seeing their country’s democratic
constitution being re-written to consolidate the single-person ruling system
brought together all generations of Venezuelans to protest on the streets for
months.
Even though the Green Cross is an apolitical
organisation, and volunteers treated patients equally regardless of their
political stand, the clashes left some of the volunteers imprisoned, severely
injured, or, in the tragic case of Paul Moreno, dead. They have been accused on
public TV stations of being an organisation led by the opposition. Even though
their efforts are not necessarily those of activists or politicians, they bring
a type of change whose impact will be remembered by future generations.
The possibility that Maduro committed crimes
against humanity has caught the attention of the Organisation of American
States. OAS has accused the country of an excessive use of force against
the government’s dissidents, which has resulted in the deaths of 124 citizens
from April until July 2017: 73 of whom died in the hands of government-related
forces. Thousands of demonstrators were detained during the protests. Federica,
representing the Green Cross, was summoned before the Organisation of American
States to give her testimony on the violence perpetrated against the civil
society during the protests, an invaluable contribution to the international
efforts made towards protecting the civil society from governmental violence.
Even though the future of Venezuela remains mostly
uncertain, giving up stopped being an option for Federica and many of the
country’s citizens. The actions of Federica and those of many other Venezuelans
remain a powerful message on the strength of citizen participation. Foucault
used to say that people know why they do what they do but often don’t know the
effect of their actions. Federica and her colleagues filled a governmental,
administrative gap, but what they might not have known is the effect that these
actions have had on others. Federica and the Green Cross’ volunteers might have
not only saved Venezuelans from tear-gas and police brutality, their efforts
might have translated into a message of hope for a generation that witnessed
Maduro’s turn into a violent regime.
This article was originally published by the Governance
Post on 15 December 2017.
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