Over the years, Chevron has helped communities in Venezuela by providing thousands of jobs and improving the quality of life for many people.
In the past 10 years, our social investments in Venezuela have topped $60 million and benefited more than 200,000 people. One percent of the income from our nonoperated joint ventures is devoted to social investment. Our efforts are focused on providing sustainable growth through infrastructure development and programs that support basic human needs, education and training, small and medium-size business development, and cultural causes.
Education and Training
For the past eight years, Chevron has sponsored the Natural Gas Business Management postgraduate program at Universidad Simón Bolívar in Caracas. The program—unique in Venezuela—covers many aspects of the natural gas industry, from wellhead to burner tip. A team from Chevron has worked with university professors to teach hundreds of professionals about the natural gas business from both a local and an international perspective. Chevron's investment of more than $1.3 million has helped 200 students graduate from the program.
Since 2005, Chevron has partnered with the Ministry of Education to advance teaching skills and thereby improve education in communities near our operations.
Chevron sponsored the Discovery Channel Global Education Partnership in alliance with the Ministry of Education. In 2011, Chevron started a teacher training program to strengthen this program and engage educators, students and parents in new ways of using audiovisual material to teach and learn. Chevron helped pay for equipment and classroom remodeling. Eleven schools across the country were helped, including 10,000 children from poor areas in Zulia, Anzoategui and Caracas.
In the state of Zulia, Chevron has refurbished 11 schools and has a maintenance program in place to make sure these projects continue. Chevron is expanding Suürula WakuaIpa Elementary School. With 500 students, the Wayúu school is in one of the poorest municipalities in the state.
Chevron also supports the Centro de Formación Profesional San Francisco in the Maracaibo area. The program offers vocational training to young people from low-income families. A second training facility was inaugurated in 2011 to enable more than 300 students to attend year-round.
Chevron funded the construction of the first high school in the community adjacent to our joint-venture Petroboscan operations in western Venezuela. More than 200 students have graduated from the 600-student school. Seventy percent of the graduates were the first in their families to earn a high school diploma. In partnership with Petroboscan, Chevron is building the Boscan Training Center to train oil workers on field disciplines.
Health
Chevron has consistently supported health programs to improve the lives of people living in the communities where we operate. We have partnered with the nongovernmental organizations Operation Smile, Fundamigos, Rotaplast International, Rotary Cumanagoto, Rotary Coquivacoa and Hogar Clínica San Rafael, a public hospital, to treat 2,800 children with cranial malformations and cleft palates.
In the states of Anzoategui and Delta Amacuro, Chevron supports the Healthy Communities program in partnership with Fundación Paragüero. The program supplies equipment to outpatient clinics and offers preventive health training. More than 500 people are helped every year.
Small and Medium-Size Business Development
Chevron works with the Center for the People's Action and its partners to support Emprered (Network of Entrepreneurs). The program offers training for new small business owners and micro entrepreneurs in the areas where we operate. Emprered has trained more than 1,400 people in project development, marketing, finance and other skills necessary to develop a sustainable business. As part of this program, Chevron provides loans and training through Empremujer, the first entrepreneur network for women in the country.
Ingenuity is one of Chevron's core values. Since 2004, we have sponsored the Ideas Contest to promote innovation and community-oriented development. Since 2010, we have recognized novel ideas developed by women with the Chevron Award for Women Entrepreneurs.
Cultural Programs and Volunteers
Chevron supports cultural programs as well. For the eighth year, Chevron is partnering with the Venezuelan embassy in Washington, D.C., to sponsor Venezuelan Sounds, which brings Venezuelan music and culture to the United States.
Updated: April 2012
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