Helping Venezuelan Babies
EDITOR’S NOTE: Erika Rojas, main representative of Conexión in Tallahassee, and born in Venezuela, conducted this interview with Jesús Aguais. Jesús is also from Venezuela and is well-known around the world for his humanitarian work. Jesús and a group of Venezuelan winners of Miss Universe, María Gabriela Isler (2013), Stefanía Fernández (2009), and Dayana Mendoza (2008), have united in a campaign to benefit Venezuelan babies.
The Interview:
ERIKA: Who are you and who do you represent?
JESÚS: I am Jesús Aguais, one more Venezuelan, concerned about the horrible humanitarian crisis that Venezuela is going through and committed to doing something about it. I represent the organization AID FOR AIDS, which I founded in 1996 in New York City, and which successfully developed the largest re-distribution of AIDS medication in the world.
ERIKA: How did the idea to help Venezuelan babies come about?
JESÚS: The work we had been doing with AID FOR AIDS during the last 20 years, sending anti-retroviral medication to more than 43 countries around the world, led us to discover—in the spring of 2016—that Venezuela had thousands of women with HIV and no treatments, with newly born babies, and the choice of breast feeding them and transmitting the virus to the babies, or leaving them to die from hunger. At that time, the baby formulas were already out of their reach. The major problem I was uncovering led us to understand that there are hundreds of thousands of women under different health conditions that cannot or should not breast-feed their babies…which has become one of the reasons for the increase of infant mortality due to malnutrition in Venezuela. So, we decided to do something about it and started a campaign called 30X30. With 30 dollars a month, you can feed a baby for 30 days. Then, along with the last three Miss Universe from Venezuela: Dayana Mendoza, Stefanía Fernández y María Gabriela Isler, we launched the campaign “Healing Venezuela,” thanks to the support by Mexican designer Ricardo Seco, we agreed that all the proceeds from the sale of the T-shirts would go towards feeding Venezuelan babies.
ERIKA: What can we do to help with this project?
JESÚS: We want for the population here in the United States to know about the dire needs that Venezuelans are going through, especially the most vulnerable ones, which are infants. Our goal is to guarantee nourishment to 5,000 babies from 0 to 12 months during their first two years of life. If we can do this, it would be a great success. This model has been developed together with other organizations that are already serving those with HIV in Venezuela. This allows us to guarantee distribution is made in an efficient manner. It is a very cost-efficient project. $1 per day per baby would cost $1.8 million dollars.
Let me explain it a little better. We did an analysis: a baby from 0 to 12 months old needs about 3 cans of 900 grams of milk formula a month. So if you go to Walmart or Kmart, the most economical 900-gram can you are going to find will cost $25 (I am in New York and you are in Florida, but it is an average). That means if we have 3 cans for a baby, and each costs $25, a baby would consume $75 a month. We are buying formula (through a private brand) where the can of 900 grams costs $10 so a baby would only cost us $30 a month.
There are two different ways people can help:
1. They can donate the cans of 900 grams of powder formula, not liquid, and send them to our offices in NYC. It is very important that they take into account these specifications since that is the requirement to send them to Venezuela.
2. They can support our campaign 30×30, which can be found in our website www.aidforaids.org. Of course, the challenge is to ensure that this campaign reaches critical mass in order for it to succeed. So, it is not just donating towards it, but, helping spread the word so it goes viral.
Many people might say, “Why don’t the large companies contribute?” We already tried that and had no success. So, we understood that we had to find the solution to alleviate this problem. What we are doing is generating a sustainable model that can continue and expand. So instead of 5,000 infants, we can supply 10,000 infants, and then 15,000 and more.
ERIKA: We should use our social networks, local fundraisers, and things like that. They would help this project grow and become successful. Do you have a final message for our readers, their friends and families?
JESÚS: Of course. If you go into our Facebook page, you will find a campaign called 30×30. The challenge for this campaign is to create critical mass to buy the cans and the idea is to be able to spread the word to people here in the United States so they can be informed and help.
ERIKA: We thank Jesús for sharing his time with us, and we congratulate him for his noble labor and for continuing to Make a Difference by helping thousands of people around the world. To our readers, relatives and friends: we urge you to join this campaign. For more information, enter the web page: https://aidforaids.org/ or Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aidforaids/
