Maduro Launches Plan to Employ Youth, Reiterates Call for Peace to Find Solutions

“There must not be a single young person outside the educational system of the nation, there must not be a single youth outside of the nation's school and work systems,” the President said.

Volunteers will hold sessions in the street in order to reach out to and find youth who are in need of work and/or education.

The program is intended to give young people the opportunity to aquire meaningful skills and education, in order to apply them to projects or employment, targeting those who are most affected by the ongoing economic crisis in Venezuela.

President Maduro is also encouraging young people who are caught up in the ongoing violence stemming from the opposition protests to participate in the program.

“I call on all the young people who have been captured by the violence to be annexed to peace.”

Video interviews have revealed that opposition organizers have paid and bribed underage young people to participate in the protests, which have often engaged in violent, destructive clashes with the state. Maduro has previously condemned the opposition for their use of youth to serve their anti-government campaigns.

Thursday, the President is also launching the Somos Venezuela movement, which will provide pensions and student scholarships and provide a mechanism for addressing the needs of the most vulnerable sectors of the population, based on an assessment carried out by over 66,000 volunteers.

Maduro has called it a “qualitative leap in the fight against poverty, needs and in the fight for social happiness, for social equality. It is a new stage of social awakening of the Bolivarian Revolution.”

“In this new step of the Bolivarian revolution, we are going to make a giant leap toward a true, deep, and structural solution to the economic and social problems of our people,” he continued.

The President has also called once more for the opposition to agree to dialogue and peace, in order that solutions can be arrived at to meet the needs and well-being of the Venezuelan people. He has emphasized that these solutions can only be arrived at through cooperation and peace.

“Venezuela needs peace in order that we can uncover the problems, and put answers and solutions in action... We have the lived and gained experience, and we have the resources, in spite of the attacks and economic war,” Maduro said.

“Venezuela has the resources to invest in health, in housing, in education, in work, and the life and well-being of the people,” he continued.

The President has called on all the revolutionary forces of Venezuela to “activate, reactivate, and recover once more the original spirit of all the missions.”

In addition to expanding opportunities for those hit hard by the economic crisis, Maduro's government is also actively engaged in ongoing efforts to diversify Venezuela's economy, which is over 90 percent dependent on oil, by expanding investment in agriculture and manufacturing.

Ongoing opposition protests have often turned violent, resulting in more than 70 dead since April.