From the Metropolitan Mayors Office it’s been apparent to prioritize the visualization and recovery of Caracas as a whole, as a starting point for the city’s socialist transformation. For us it is crucial that the image that caraqueños have of the city is one of integration, non excluding of the cosmogonies and life styles that exist together. This is precisely one of the strengths as a city. That is to think and evoke Caracas cannot just be a mere catalog exercise, where the postcards of the Plaza Bolivar, the historical district of Petare, the Altamira Obelisk, the Museum of Fine Arts or a panoramic of the barrios to the west appear. It cannot also be a mere inventory of its problems. But above all we must reverse the tendency to think our city with exclusion of its popular districts, to make invisible the caraqueño barrios, to stigmatize its dwellers. To think Caracas implies to depart from recognition of the many social and political relations which define it, whose sign is the mestizaje, the mix, the coexistence of the different. Only through recognition of this reality has it been possible to begin the transformation process tending the solution of its problems.

 “How is a community activated on the basis of its own demands and on the basis of recuperating a space where they are active protagonists? How to work with people instead of asking them crossed arms to wait while you finish their house?” Hector Sanchez reflects as we ask him about the initial focus of the Camino de los Españoles Endogenous Development Program. That’s how he begins to tell us about the institutional vision which animated the Metropolitan Mayors Office to begin this project.

A SINGLE COMMUNITY

In February of 2007, when the Foundation initiated the contact with the neighbors, some were already excited with the idea to organize a community advisory group (the Guaicamacuto). From the correspondence with the different sectors of the Camino Community we have consolidated into four groups; the Community Advisory Counsel for the of the Spanish-Vargas community of the Camino , Community Advisory Counsel of the Spaniards Metropolitan District, Community advisory counsel of Guaicamacuto, and Communal Counsel for the New Era.

 THE ART ROAD

Any project of economic, communitarian or city-planning action must have cultural resonance, say the people of the Foundation: “If not, the infrastructure is pure concrete. The cultural intervention adds value to him to the socio-communitarian work. For us, it is not tried solely to add artistic beauty to those who live on the Road already imbued with natural and historical beauty.”

● substitution and rehabilitation of dwellings.
● continuation and improvement of el Camino roads.
● improvement and mass distribution of water services, servidas and residual waters.
● consolidation of the Mercal, Barrio Adentro, Ribas and Robinson missions, among others.

 TIME OF SOWING

In the upper communities of El Camino, the population are farmers. From generation to generation has been passed on the  knowledge of how to cultivate. The children help with the work in the fields. Twelve families have received credits from the Women's Development Bank of Venezuela (Banmujer)  to promote agriculture in the higher communities of "the road."  They cultivate avocado and coffee in fields that average between 1.5 and 2 hectares. In a parallel effort, with the support of the Foundation, the community councels are engaging with the Socialist Agricultural Development Fund (Fonda)  in order to see which resources can be obtained and what are the requirements within the National Park. In 2007, a similar contact with The National Institute of Development of Small and Medium Industries (Inapymi) was established.