Venezuela: Man cooks delicacies for the hungry in Caracas

An advertising executive in Venezuela has found a new lease of life after the country's deepening crisis forced him to close the company he ran in the capital Caracas.

Andres Burgos, 55, was distraught when he had to lay off dozens of staff as revenue dried up and business disappeared.

And his world began closing in with many of his relatives fleeing Venezuela to seek a better life abroad.

But he's now turned his own hardship into a mission to help some of the capital's most vulnerable residents - by cooking food for people who live and sleep on the streets.

Five days a week, he rises before dawn and goes into his kitchen at home to cook arepas, the traditional corn-based pasties that are the bread and butter of Venezuelans, particularly the poor.

He piles the pasties with tasty and nutritious fillings such as ham, chicken, lentils and carrots, and then sets out on his bike to distribute them.

For some people who normally survive by rummaging through piles of garbage for bits of food, it's the only meal they'll have that day.

Burgos calls his project BiciArepazo, which translates roughly as Bike Arepas.

He started small with his own money a year ago, passing out a few arepas on his way to work.

But when strict quarantine measures were imposed to combat the coronavirus in March, the number of homeless and even well-dressed people he saw digging through the garbage increased.

That's when Burgos went from handing out 20 arepas a day to 150, boosted by the support of family and friends from the business community.

"I'm passionate about this," he says. "I don't get any money from it, but I do it always with a smile. That's all the payment I need."

Burgos also brings a smile to the people he meets every day.

Luis Miguel Yajure, who's 25, lost his job at the start of the year and has lived on the streets for eight months.

He said the two arepas Burgos gave him were likely to be the only things he would eat that day.

Thanks to Burgos, he said, he wouldn't need to look for food in the garbage dump.

"That man doesn't ask us for anything," Yajure said. "An arepa like that, made with love and warmth."

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