In the last few days, I have been experiencing a continuous feeling of accomplishment out of something I thought could be embarrassing or impossible to accomplish. I created a fundraiser for my best friend in Venezuela.
Her name is Irene, but she goes by Coki. We’ve been friends since high school, she is one of the few friends I have left in Venezuela. All our classmates and friends had left the country looking for a better place to live. Since Hugo Chavez got in power back in 1998, things switched around slowly but steady. All the freedom, fun, education, happiness Venezuelans enjoyed was shadowed by a mediocre, socialist and ignorant regime.
Coki has been one of the few who still believed that Venezuela could be saved, either by elections, trusting opposition leaders, protesting, going on strike, not going on strike, she was really hopeful. While all the political and economic climate was changing, her family was changing too, her father died when she was a teen. Years later, her older sister, Ana developed cancer. Coki took care of her sister, as she was going to school and working to bring money to the house.
For some months, the chemotherapy and radiotherapy worked, but later the cancer returned and spread to her lungs. Doctors could not do much for Ana’s health, so that’s why Coki’s family decided to go to an institute in Milan to treat Ana. They did all the paperwork, and the institute accepted Ana’s case. Now the problem was to gather the money for Ana, Coki and their mother to travel to Milan. Thank God, good friends from home helped them out financially, they also sold some of their belongings to pay for the trip.
They spent two months in Milan, but the treatment didn’t work, there was no hope for Ana. They all went back to Venezuela, and Ana decided that she would not do more treatments. It was very difficult to see her older sister dying day after day. The sister that was with Coki since she was a baby, the sister that raised her up while their mother worked, the sister that gave Coki her first nephew… After a few months Ana died.
Coki was with Ana until the very last moment, but it wasn’t all over. After Ana’s death, her son Stefano wanted to drop out of school. Coki had to intervene, Stefano was now like her child, and taking care of him was added to her others responsibilities. Coki sat down to study with him, to type essays, to do homework, etc. She made sure he would go to school everyday, it was because of Coki that Stefano graduated from high school last year.
Among all the difficulties Coki was having with her sister’s death, her aunt also died too because of cancer. Add to that all the uncertainty Venezuela experienced during the last year, the protests, the violence against protesters, the students’ deaths, the lack of food, medicine, electricity, the stress and anxiety in every Venezuelan rose to the max.
Coki was one of those Venezuelans anxious, scared, who didn’t know what was coming next, who didn’t know what could happen tomorrow, if she would make it to work, to school or home. She would leave her smartphone at home because she was afraid of getting robbed. So for hours and hours, I wouldn’t know anything about her whereabouts. It has been like this until now, because the situation and stability in Venezuela hasn’t improved.
Coki was able to graduate from the prestigious and public Universidad de Carabobo, with a Business Administration degree. She has been working while studying, but her income isn’t enough for her monthly expenses, neither she could save enough money to buy a plane ticket to leave the country. Her Venezuelan passport expires on March 2019, but she has until October this year to leave the country to move to Europe where she has the documentation to stay and work legally.
This is why I started all this, the campaign and the fundraiser. And this is why I have felt useful, I’ve been working and mobilizing for this cause, for something that it is not for me. It makes me feel alive and accomplished that so far, we have raised almost $400! Thanks to each one of you who have contributed to Coki’s future.
I want my best friend to have a better life, I want her to experience all the great things I have been living for the last ten years, since I left Venezuela. I want her to be safe and be happy, she deserves it. Help me to make this happen.
Donate: https://www.gofundme.com/ayudemos-a-coki-a-salir-del-pais
Thank you so much,
Vanessa.
Hello, I am Vanessa Brito 
Leave a comment