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Caracas, Venezuela.  We will now provide the text by Aitor Azpiritxaga about this initiative supported by Basques in Venezuela that was included in the February issue of Jazoera:

“Once again the Society of San Francisco Javier, as it has for 28 years on the third week of January, carried out a medical and dental operation in Paramo de las Siete Lagunas, about an hour away in the state of Trujillo, which is at approximately 3,400 meters above sea level. 

The reasons was to bring medical and dental assistance as well as clothes and toys to the residents as they have done since it was founded by Jon San Juan Echevarrieta who currently resides in Bilbao. Paramo is near the site where a plane carrying 28 students from the San Jose de Merida School crashed on its way to Caracas where they were going to spend Christmas.

The residents of the area collaborated with the search and recovery of bodies where today a cross has been erected.  The cross is called the Cruz Colorada (Red Cross), where the bodies were taken to Valera.  San Juan studied at the San Jose School, and in gratitude these people are taken what they need most, health.

At the site where the visits take place there is a loom, the only thing that Jon San Juan could think of to improve the local economy.

The members of the society are mainly alumni of the San Igancio de Loyola School in Caracas or their relatives.  Basque community members who are currently involved include Aitor Azpiritxaga, the longest standing member of the group, Antonio arriaga (pediatrician), Gaizka Zubizarreta (dentist), as well as Yula Álvarez de Mendizábal, Olatz Bilbao de Zubizarreta, Carolina de Ituarte, Maitane Azpiritxaga, among others as well as a Venezuelan doctor of Basque origin Roberto Ocho Iturbe."

To download February’s Jazoera in pdf, here