Caracas Chronicles

Every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, Édgar Martín walks about three kilometers in Caracas, from Capuchinos to La Pastora parish, to have lunch at a charity kitchen.

At 84 years old, Martín says he has been forced to rely on charity kitchens and social and state assistance to survive, since his pension is only 130 bolívares a month—equivalent to less than one dollar—and insufficient to buy protein in a country where a kilo of meat ranges between $9 and $19. He lives alone and nobody gives him work. He has been going to the kitchen for five years.

“I make do with the bolsita (a subsidized food bag distributed through the Local Supply and Production Committees, known as CLAP, controlled by the ruling sparty) when it arrives. I’m alone, my whole family left. I stayed and I’m getting by,” he says while waiting for lunch.

“From what they give me today [at the kitchen], I set aside food for other days and keep it in the fridge, because they don’t serve on Monday and Wednesday. If there’s anything left from the bag, I make spaghetti. When I can I buy ingredients to make a sofrito, but I can’t buy the protein.”

At his table are three other elderly people from different Caracas parishes (Catia and San José), with similar stories. Their situation would be even more precarious without the kitchen.

Humanitarian groups estimate that at least 4.4 million people in Venezuela need food assistance. Children, pregnant women and the elderly are those who require help most urgently. After surveying more than 12,000 households across all states between July and August 2025, the HumVenezuela—a platform created by Venezuelan civil-society organizations—highlights that Venezuelan families have higher incomes compared with previous years, but not better access to food.

Before the cuts, the prepared-and-served meals modality used to benefit 249,000 people in 1,586 schools. Now it remains only in Falcón and Sucre, reaching 83,000 children and school staff.

New survival strategies have emerged. HumVenezuela points out that 39.2% of households spend their savings to buy food, 43.1% borrow food, and 46.2% buy food on credit. At the same time, more severe strategies, such as begging on the streets, or asking for food at houses and businesses, also rose.

Meanwhile, international funding is dwindling, and that reduction in humanitarian response funds has had a direct impact on the most vulnerable groups.

Due to a lack of resources generated by cuts from its main donors, the World Food Programme (WFP) announced in August the end of operations in five Venezuelan states: Trujillo, Yaracuy, Barinas, Anzoátegui and Monagas. With that decision, more than 400,000 people from 1,700 schools stopped receiving food assistance in the country, according to the WFP’s own estimates. The organization has been present in Venezuela since 2021.

World Food Programme, slashed

For the 2024–2025 school year, which concluded in July 2025, WFP served more than 827,000 people in over 2,800 schools across nine states through its Programa de Comidas Escolares (‘School Meals Program’), which provides hot meals and delivers food baskets to take home for children under five and school staff. By November 2025, its reach in both modalities fell to 350,000 people in 1,100 initial, primary and special-education schools in four states: Delta Amacuro, Falcón, Sucre and Zulia.

Before the cuts, the prepared-and-served meals modality benefited 249,000 people—students and school staff—in 1,586 schools. For the 2025–2026 school year, which began in September, that modality remains in only two states: Falcón and Sucre, reaching 83,000 children and school staff.

In the schools where the program operated, staff recorded increases in both enrollment and attendance. After the cuts, civil-society groups warned that the measure would not only affect the nutrition of thousands of children but could also jeopardize education by reducing school attendance. On this point, WFP does not provide data: it says that official attendance figures belong to national authorities.

July and August 2025 registered the lowest levels of food assistance and livelihoods support for the year across Venezuela, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

In San Blas, Alimenta la Solidaridad used to serve 300 people daily, mostly children. But they have been left adrift, many of them kids 2-12 years old.

“Many families in critical conditions did not receive the necessary inputs to cover their basic needs, which can worsen food insecurity, malnutrition and exposure to protection risks,” OCHA warned in its situation report published in October.

Being food insecure means lacking access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food and resources to grow, develop or lead a healthy life.

For 2025, the Humanitarian Response Plan for Venezuela aimed to raise $147.5 million to reach 2 million people in the food-security and livelihoods sector. However, only 15.2% of that target has been collected, and less than half of the target population has been reached.

The case of Alimenta la Solidaridad

Alimenta la Solidaridad began its work as an NGO in 2016 to confront the food crisis in some of the most vulnerable neighborhoods of the Caracas metro area, through a network of community kitchens that expanded to other regions.

For nine years, its community kitchens offered a balanced daily lunch to children and adolescents—their main beneficiaries—and also to infants, pregnant and breastfeeding mothers, and the elderly. But they closed operations in May 2025 due to lack of resources from international cooperation funds and in response to conditions imposed by the domestic Law on Oversight, Regularization, Operation and Financing of NGOs that made their work unviable, the organization said in a statement.

The social impact of the closure has been enormous. According to Alimenta, about 12,000 vulnerable children who used to receive daily meals across its network of 240 kitchens in at least 13 states were affected. Those states are Aragua, Anzoátegui, Capital District, Carabobo, Falcón, Lara, Miranda, Zulia, Táchira, Yaracuy, Sucre, Portuguesa and Vargas.

In Sucre municipality (Miranda state), the birthplace of the program, 15 of those centers operated. At the community kitchen of the Vicariate of Our Lady of Coromoto in Petare’s San Blas sector, they served 300 people daily, mostly children.

“These beneficiaries were left adrift, many of them children between 2 and 12 years old who remain vulnerable. Several women who worked as cooks in the volunteer network that prepared the lunches told me that children still come with their little cup or container to look for food. Hunger doesn’t ask for permission, it’s very sad not to be able to help them,” says a program insider who prefers to remain anonymous.

A lunch that included protein, carbohydrates and vegetables to guarantee the necessary daily caloric intake was served to beneficiaries at each session in the community kitchens.

“We didn’t just give them lunch, which for many people was their only meal of the day; in the case of children we also monitored weight and height to prevent malnutrition. Unfortunately, these children are no longer monitored,” the source explains.

A tangible, immediate response

Charity, social, community and even state-run kitchens that survive remain alternatives for households facing severe food insecurity.

The NGO Cáritas de Venezuela has also recorded permanent closures of kitchens and funding cuts. Despite that, it seeks to maintain aid.

“Undernourishment and food insecurity continue to be a critical problem in the country, especially in developing children who live in remote and vulnerable areas,” says Janeth Márquez, executive director of Cáritas de Venezuela, an organization that also measures and treats malnutrition in children.

According to a Cáritas report from August 2025, of 2,778 children under five evaluated in 20 states, 252 had global acute malnutrition (9.1%).

Cáritas still runs 18 community kitchens in 17 neighborhoods across 10 states: Apure, Bolívar, Carabobo, Capital District, Guárico, Falcón, Lara, Yaracuy and Zulia. There they serve a daily lunch planned by a specialist to ensure it meets the nutritional needs of the target population.

“Food assistance requires measures with structural impact, since these are public problems that need robust, large-scale, inter-sector programs, plans and public policies adapted to the needs of each population group,” explains UCV professor Yngrid Candela.

Ninety percent of those served are children between 6 months and 12 years; 5% are elderly adults; 3% are pregnant and breastfeeding mothers; and 2% are people with disabilities.

Márquez believes that kitchens are still necessary because they provide a “tangible, immediate” response to the food shortages that persist in many communities. She also maintains that they strengthen community ties by involving parents and caregivers in kitchen logistics and help relieve the family burden.

“Many families report eating only one meal a day or simply supplementing their food with help from the kitchen because otherwise it would not be enough. There are many single mothers who benefit from this assistance,” she adds.

Their work is possible thanks to partnerships with other organizations, local communities and parish Cáritas chapters. According to their 2024 management report, that year they managed to serve 345,000 meal portions in their kitchens.

The ideal in food assistance

In situations of food and nutritional vulnerability, immediate measures such as distributing food baskets or using kitchens are usually activated. However, when these projects depend on private initiatives or organized civil society, experts suggest their reach is limited and their continuity is a challenge.

“Kitchens have always been an alternative to mitigate hunger in extreme-need situations, but they face major challenges in adapting to the population’s nutritional needs, food safety, community participation, financing, among others, which makes them an unsustainable practice,” explains Yngrid Candela, a nutritionist, professor and researcher at the Center for Development Studies of the Central University of Venezuela (Cendes-UCV).

High food prices, low wages and the daily devaluation of domestic currency are the reasons for the increase in diners at the garage of the Padre Claret Church, where the kitchen operates

“For this reason, they are recommended for situations of extreme emergency and short duration, not for economic and social emergencies that are long-term. Food assistance requires measures with structural impact, since these are public problems that need robust, large-scale, inter-sector programs, plans and public policies adapted to the needs of each population group.”

However, that analysis does not dismiss that food-bag programs or solidarity kitchens are valid alternatives that mitigate the vulnerability of people in the specific communities they serve and are urgent responses with a positive impact.

More mouths to feed | Zulia

In Maracaibo, kitchens resist the crisis. Their volunteers try to stretch resources as much as possible so that everyone who comes in for a plate of food—a number that is growing—will have something to eat that day. Waiting lists lengthen, and some programs aren’t enough for everyone. In October there was an increase in women, men, children and elderly people who came hoping to quiet their hunger.

At La Mesa de la Misericordia, a social kitchen kept afloat by volunteers who donate lunches each Wednesday to elderly people and persons with disabilities, 170 people were registered. But that number rose to 200 from the third week of October.

“We’ve noticed an increase in diners for four weeks. We were serving 170 plates a month ago and now we’re serving 200. Every week more people register,” reports Mónica Galué, one of the kitchen’s coordinators.

So far they haven’t run out of food. “Thank God we always do the calculations, and if someone is missing, the kitchen scrambles and makes something extra,” she says with relief.

On the menu they try to maintain nutritious items: beans, rice, some animal protein and vegetables. As a complement, they try to provide a dairy drink.

High food prices, low wages and the daily devaluation of domestic currency are the reasons for the increase in diners at the garage of the Padre Claret Church, where the kitchen operates, according to the volunteer.

“The reality is that if it’s hard for someone like me, who has income, to make it to the end of the month buying groceries, I can’t imagine pensioners,” she laments.

La Mesa de la Misericordia was born in 2017, when one of its founders saw a man, a child and a dog fighting over a trash bag to get food thrown away from a restaurant. It began as a network of friends, family and volunteers, undergoing changes because of the economic crisis: from 50 volunteers, only 12 remain. The rest left the country migrated. They went from serving 900 plates daily in the beginning to only 200 once a week.

But that reduction is not exclusive to that kitchen. The Augustinian Sisters of the Carmela Valera school, also in Maracaibo, stopped serving food daily a year ago and now distribute food bags once a month to registered people.

The reason: deficiencies in the domestic gas service and complaints from local merchants because of the increased number of people coming for a plate of food.

“We used to serve 120 people daily. Now we deliver a bag with food on the last Thursday of every month to 60 registered people,” says Sister Superior Leuntina Aponte.

“Although the situation is not as severe as during the worst years of the economic crisis, family incomes are still insufficient for a balanced diet and they still take in children with malnutrition.”

The 60 bags are insufficient. The nuns have another 30 people on a waiting list that has grown in the last 15 days, Aponte says.

“People come every day, sometimes with children in their arms, to ask for food and we add them to the list. However, no one leaves empty-handed; we give them some flour or rice,” she adds.

The bags try to include at least five items: rice, pasta, flour, sugar, and sometimes butter or coffee. It all depends on what they can buy with donations.

“Help has decreased. If you go to buy the products, the resources really aren’t enough anymore,” she laments. She says they trust that the bags will continue to be filled by “God’s providence.”

Other kitchens operate in Maracaibo—mostly in churches—such as Hogar Clínica San Rafael and the Basilica of Our Lady of Chiquinquirá. They do not distribute food daily, and priority is given to children, the elderly and people with disabilities.

“We make sure the kids eat” | Caracas

In Caracas, the route that begins on Norte 10 Avenue in La Pastora and ends on Calle Real de Puerta Caracas concentrates three kitchens: the charity kitchen run by the international organization Remar; the Casa de los Abuelos Divina Pastora, which depends on the Caracas mayor’s office; and the San Judas Tadeo solidarity kitchen, managed by the Solidarity Network of the Augustinian Recollects (Arcores Venezuela), which has been active for 25 years.

At the San Judas Tadeo solidarity kitchen, at the end of Calle Real de Puerta Caracas, they distribute lunch to 170 people—among them elderly adults, single mothers and people experiencing homelessness—each Tuesday and Friday between 11 a.m. and noon. To decide who will receive food, they carry out a census twice a year and issue an ID card.

Despite having a registry of beneficiaries, they must prepare more food than planned: normally 20 to 40 extra people appear who are not registered but still come looking for food. The Augustinian Recollects also run the San Judas Tadeo Community Center in the El Polvorín neighborhood of La Pastora. There they serve lunches Monday through Thursday to 43 children and adolescents aged 5 to 14 from the parish’s most vulnerable communities.

“We make sure the kids eat. Before, they would take the food home, and if a child had many siblings, the child didn’t eat. Either the mother or father would eat it, or they would continue to suffer malnutrition. We decided to enroll the siblings and we keep track of their weight and height,” explains Annier Portillo, coordinator of the social work of the San Judas Tadeo soup kitchen, the program that makes the kitchens possible.

According to Portillo, staying active hasn’t been easy, but they rely on the congregation and are constantly seeking donations and projects. Portillo says that although the situation is not as severe as during the worst years of the economic crisis, family incomes are still insufficient for a balanced diet and they still take in children with malnutrition.

“Not everyone can afford a nutritionally adequate life. At the current purchasing-power level, families can’t afford protein, and we have children at important ages who should receive protein, just like the elderly,” she adds.

Further down, on the Torrero corner, the Casa de los Abuelos de La Pastora receives 130 to 150 elderly people daily. It has operated since January 2024 and serves breakfast, lunch and an afternoon snack. According to Martha Santana, who leads the Casa, people come from different parts of the city: from 23 de Enero to Petare. In spacious facilities, they organize to eat in groups of 30.

“When there’s chicken, it’s shredded into the rice. That’s a luxury,” says 68-year-old Arcadia, from Ocumare del Tuy (Miranda).

Although beneficiaries are grateful for the help, some say portions are small. It is also possible to see people who, in the same day, pick up food at Remar’s kitchen and then stop by the Casa de los Abuelos. The “lack of money” is what drives people to go to kitchens, says Gladys Utrera, 75, a neighbor of Quinta Crespo who attends the Olga Luzardo Socialist Dietary Center (Cedis), another state-run kitchen dependent on the National Institute of Nutrition (INN), at the Crucecita corner of Fuerzas Armadas Avenue in central Caracas.

There they register the elderly, people with disabilities, and pregnant and breastfeeding women, and issue them an ID card. They operate Monday through Friday and receive 100 to 200 people among the registered and “stragglers” like Utrera: those who are not yet registered but come with their container to see if any food is left. The next census, they say, will be in January 2026.

“Sometimes there’s only rice with mortadella” | Miranda

Arcadia is 68 and her pension doesn’t stretch to eat every day. She has lived alone since her children migrated in 2022, and when she doesn’t receive remittances, she survives on the small amount provided by the Amor Mayor program. She has rheumatism, her body aches and she walks with difficulty, but each midday, with effort and fatigue, she goes to the kitchen next to the Student Plaza in Ocumare del Tuy, Miranda, in search of a plate of food.

“Sometimes they give us rice with mortadella, other times beans with pasta or pasta with sardines. When there’s chicken, it’s shredded into the rice. That’s a luxury,” she says resignedly.

Like Arcadia, hundreds of people in Ocumare del Tuy, Miranda, depend on food houses to eat. There are at least four in the municipality, but they are not always running.

“There are days when they don’t prepare anything because supplies don’t arrive,” explains a worker who asked not to be identified. The scarcity of protein is constant and the capacity to serve is limited in the face of growing demand.

In the Ciudad Betania housing development of that city, where at least 4,500 families live, there is also a kitchen. However, it only serves about 150 people. “Little by little the number of beneficiaries was reduced and it shouldn’t be like that because there is a lot of need here,” laments a resident of that housing complex, from the state-run program Gran Misión Vivienda.

In the neighboring Urdaneta municipality, also in Valles del Tuy, there are 19 food houses run by the Ministry of Food, but the communal kitchen in the town center stopped serving the public.

“We used to eat there, but now they tell us there’s no operational capacity,” says Ramona Pérez, 72, who lives with her 45-year-old son. He works in Caracas and visits on weekends. “He helps me a lot, but nowadays the money isn’t enough. And the pension we receive is practically an insult,” she says, her voice breaking.

In the Guaicaipuro municipality, the old kitchens were replaced by the so-called Bases de Misiones, community centers that offer social services.

“They only serve the most vulnerable. There aren’t popular kitchens like before. It was hard to maintain this program because of the economic crisis and the high demand,” says a government spokesperson, without specifying how many people receive food.

The stories of Arcadia and Ramona are those of many older women in Venezuela: alone, ill, with insufficient incomes and dependent on an assistance system that can’t keep up. Their words reflect a painful reality: food, in many homes, has become a privilege.