No Construction Companies Needed! Aquiles Nazoa Pioneer Camp, Caracas

“The Pioneers Movement” is a radical house-building collective in Venezuela that promotes taking direct action to solve the country’s deacades long housing crisis. The Pioneers have taken over approximately forty different unusued land sites for community-led construction in Caracas, and many more across Venezuela. 

In the pioneer camps, dozens or hundreds of families come together to build blocks of community owned flats together, often following months-long occupations against private landowners. In many cases, the government eventually intervened to grant the movement both land and resources. 

The collective belongs to a wider “Settler’s Movement” and believes that the act of building houses as a community is a fundamental pillar of people’s power, as well as for constructing more cohesive communities. 

“Building homes is building politics,” is one of the movement’s principal slogans. 

Venezuelanalysis visited the Alquiles Nazoa camp in Caracas to see this unique experience of organisation and self-management first hand. Readers can see photos of our visit below!