There, at the age of 27, she spares no effort in helping young people in her community see for themselves that they can have a less bleak and barren future.

Gerardo is a medical doctor and he knows very well what Alzheimer’s does to people’s lives. That is why, when his mother was diagnosed with the disease, he moved in to be by her side and devoted himself to her care, fearing she would forget about him.

As much as they tried to avoid it, they eventually had no choice but to take Néstor Comellas to the Antonio Patricio de Alcalá University Hospital in Cumaná, state of Sucre, Venezuela, to receive treatment for the cancer he had been diagnosed.

Between 2016 and 2024, almost 15,000 people have died in Venezuela at the hands of the security forces. Many of the victims were young black or brown people under the age of 30 who lived in the country’s slums. In 2019, some of their mothers banded together to share their grief and keep each other company while at the courts and prosecutors’ offices. The number of Madres Poderosas has just been growing ever since.

Miguel Feijoo began teaching at the College of Architecture of the Central University of Venezuela in 2019. That same year, he had an experience that would significantly change the way he viewed his profession and one that would teach him that the ultimate goal of a university should be to educate and prepare students to become, more than anything, critical citizens. That is why he did not rest until he made sure his students were registered to vote. He himself went with them.