The Venezuelan who’s feeding thousands of youths in his hungry country

Wilbert bursts out on a dusty street from his tin roof shack that in the midday heat feels like a burning oven. The boy, clutching a spoon in his hand, knows that in a few minutes he will dig it into a rice, beans, and meatloaf meal. “Lunch is coming! Lunch is coming!” he is hollering cheerfully. 

This is Carucieña, an impoverished neighborhood in the city of Barquisimeto, the capital of the Venezuelan state of Lara. Vivacious Wilbert somehow doesn’t fit into the gloomy atmosphere of Carucieña, a parched piece of land filled with countless ramshackle dwellings. 

More than 200 miles away in Caracas there is a young man who

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