Venezuela media group visits local Venezuelan Institute
SEVERAL representatives of five Venezuela based media houses visited the Venezuelan Institute of Culture and Cooperation (IVCC) on Tuesday and met the staff, students and members of the Guyana and Venezuela Friendship Society.

The 50 Spanish speaking persons, including journalists, photographers, producers, technical operators, engineers and other operatives, are relying heavily on IVCC Lecturer, Mr. Kawal Persaud, who will accompany them and serve as translator for the duration of the UNASUR Summit.

Persaud was, on Tuesday, chatting, in Spanish, with a reporter from Venezuela when his attention was also being sought elsewhere and this reporter took the opportunity to engage him and found he knew enough for them to converse.

A producer at TeleSur television, based in Caracas, 24-year old Sarah Gomez said the official channel of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is an international one that is also sponsored by the Governments of Argentina, Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Uruguay.

Gomez, who has been in the field for two years, studied Social Communication at Santa Rosa University but has only been learning Spanish four months now.

She said she does not get to practice much in Venezuela but getting to speak English in this country is fantastic.

The others at the IVCC included Veronica Chaeon of Radio Nac-Devz; Darwin Cedeno, Mitchelle Caballero and Omar Betancourt of Venezolano de Television (V.T.V); Zurimar Campos of A.V.N (Venezuelan News Agency) and Gilian Sanchez of Presidential News Agency.

The group is part of the 70-member contingent in Guyana for the ongoing IV REGULAR UNASUR (Union of South American Nations) Summit.