Vatican newspaper highlights UNICEF’s work in Venezuela

July 09, 2026

Drawing on a blog post from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the Vatican newspaper devoted the most prominent front-page article in its July 8 edition to UNICEF’s work in Venezuela.

“Music, dance, outdoor games, books, and drawings. It is a simple recipe that allows Venezuelan children, displaced by the double earthquake that destroyed their homes and brought the country to its knees on June 24, to smile again, even if only for a few moments,” staff journalist Valerio Palombaro reported in “Venezuela: Un sorriso tra le macerie“ (Venezuela: A smile amid the rubble).

Palombaro added:

Devastation and grief remain, alongside urgent needs for aid, but at the Jose Maria Vargas sports complex in Catia la Mar, a Caribbean coastal town among the hardest hit by the quake, the atmosphere is different. There is a breath of lightheartedness and normality; something as simple as it is essential to help children overcome the fear and trauma of the earthquake ... UNICEF has helped set up these “Child-Friendly Spaces” at the César Nieves stadium and at Playa Grande as well, offering relief to hundreds of children and adolescents.

 

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Further information:

• Venezuela Un sorriso tra le macerie (L'Osservatore Romano, 7/8/26)
• “I don't know how I stayed calm” (UNICEF, 7/7/26)