Editorial

History is a fundamental value for understanding the present; thus, when a year ends, it is important to review what we have experienced and learned, the objectives achieved and those that we have had to postpone or modify. At the start of a new year, it is a good time to review our resolutions and the goals we want to achieve.

In Venezuela, many of us have “endless desires and superb visions”, as the great poet Giacomo Leopardi wrote. Willingness to transform the reality that we live in order to seek the common good in our country; however, we are subject to a roller coaster of moods, difficulties that exceed the best predictions, reaching unthinkable levels. The worst consequence of what we are going through is to get used to it, to always try to “solve”, to survive, and to forget to live; in such a way that the desire falls asleep and we remain paralyzed or as if dead alive, without perceiving the reality to the depths.

In Chant XXX of his poem On the portrait of a pretty woman, sculpted in his sepulchral monument, Leopardi becomes a traveling companion with these verses:

Endless desires and superb visions
Creates in wandering thought:
With natural virtue, learned harmony;
Human nature, why being so fragile and infamous in everything,
If you are dust and shadow, do you consider yourself so superior?

It is probable that we have sometimes experienced this contradiction; on the one hand, infinite desires in our heart (beauty, justice, truth), which we try to identify with many things, projects and experiences that generate this “learned harmony”; and, moreover, great fragility in the face of factors that we do not control and overwhelm us or cause desire to disappear.

Faced with this whirlwind, it is fundamental to have an appropriate attitude towards what is happening, because it is often an unforeseen event that surprises us and brings us out of lethargy and if we are distracted we risk ‘ignore the best part: a look, a landscape, a friendly word, or even an unforeseen situation that shakes us up. Don Luigi Giussani said that the best hypothesis to understand the why of shadows in the half-light was not to look at them but to face the point, however weak, from which the light comes.

So, is it possible that these desires of the beginning of the year can continue, even under such dire circumstances? Is it possible that reality hides an ultimate positive side so that it turns into an ally? Everyone must find their own answer. For my part, I am convinced that it is possible because something always happens, or I meet someone who helps me to look at the points of light among the shadows, and thus the desire to continue is reborn.

-A multisensory proposal made on December 6, on the occasion of the meeting with artists and allies of the Music and Work project, were included aromas and flavors that connected us with our terroir, products developed by graduates of Emprendedoras del chocolate (Chocolate entrepreneurs)  Verónica Prieto, Emma Torrealba, and Marlene Briceño , founders of Chocolates Las Heroicas, and Violeta García , founder of Nirvana Cioccolato.

– Yesenia Díaz, Emprendedoras de la Belleza (Entrepreneur of Beauty), graduate of the Beauty for a Future program, inaugurated her beauty salon “Mi gran amor” in La Dolorita, Petare; it offers hairdressing services for women, barber, manicure and pedicure. His project was set out as a business plan during the development of this program.

– Miritza Noguera, Emprendedoras de la Belleza (Entrepreneur of Beauty), a graduate of the ^7th of Beauty program group for a Future, gave classic cut courses to Tiff Academy Tiffani Moncada, a graduate of the ^8th group as Entrepreneur of Beauty.
These courses respond to the invitation of Tiffani who got to know Miritza during one of the support activities organized by Trabajo y Persona.

– Darling Rendón, Emprendedora de la Belleza (Entrepreneur of Beauty), graduate of the 8 ^th Beauty for a Future group, led the conference Imponer su marca y su imagen personal (Impose your brand and your personal image), in the spaces of Alta Vibra, in Sabana Grande.

-On December 6, Elen Aguilera , graduate of the Emprendedoras del Chocolate (Chocolate Entrepreneur) of the 1 ^st group of Carúpano, of the Venezuela Tierra del Cacao project, as well as Marithé Martínez , graduate of the 2 ^nd group of Emprendimiento y nutrición-Gastronomía360 (Entrepreneurship and Nutrition-Gastronomy360), exhibited their products at the first Expo-Educarte Fair, organized by Fe y Alegría. On interactive stands, they introduced the inhabitants of Carúpano to the work carried out in 2019, as well as the program for 2020.