By Valeria | Subscribe: http://bit.ly/sub2storybooth | Record your story @ https://storybooth.com or our iPhone app for a chance to get animated. Comment, like, share this story.

Valeria is originally from Venezuela, but she came to the United States in the Summer of 2017. Venezuela is amazing and she absolutely loves her country. It has beautiful places to visit, a lovely climate, and wonderful beautiful people and culture.

But Valeria and her family were forced to flee to protect themselves from really dangerous times and real risks to their lives from the Venezuela crisis - all that's going on with Guaido and Maduro. It all happened because of the raids and protests and civil unrest that were happening in her country at the time. That started because even though people had money to get food, clothes, and other basic necessities, nobody could find them, those things weren't being made available to the people. That wasn't safe all by itself, and things only got worse from there.

She and her family knew so many people who worked in banks, or hospitals, or schools, yet who still had to go through the trash to collect food for themselves and their families. There was so much pain and injustice happening all around them, across the entire country, and it just became too much to handle.

Valeria, and other young people around the country got angrier and angrier about what was happening, and they decided that they had to take a stand against everything that they knew was wrong and against the people who were hurting their country. It wasn't safe, but it felt necessary.

The people felt that those in powerful government positions weren't doing what they were supposed to, which is to protect and keep their citizens safe, and to help their country grow and thrive.

Valeria joined a group that would always go out and protest what was happening, and it wasn't safe, but she knew it had to be done if she and her family hoped to stay in their country. They desperately wanted to make and see change, but it was truly scary because many people lost their lives.

Valeria had seen it happen. Everyone fled the scene, but she stayed with a young boy as his life slowly left him, and she sang to him, and she prayed. The national guard often were very rough and seemed not to care enough about the lives they were hurting, or taking away.

From that terrible moment on she sang and prayed at every rally and every march and every protest, wherever people could hear her she would pray and ask God to help them and protect them.

As time passed, the National Guard officers began to march and do raids in the neighborhood where Valeria and her family lived. She and her family couldn't sleep because they were afraid and didn't know what would happen to them if the national guard came for them. They had heard stories about people just disappearing, or taken to underground prisons, or worse.

Her Mom was really worried and concerned about what was going on in their Country and she believed that it just wasn't safe. She decided she didn't want to take any chances with her children. She found a way for Valeria and her little brother to fly out of Venezuela and to Miami to live with her relatives there.

She and her brother applied for asylum and to become legal immigrants in the US and they were approved. Its been hard for her to be so far away and watching all of these things still happening in Venezuela, and she and her brother and not the only ones who fled their country because it wasn't safe, many have. She prays for her country and her people every single day, hoping that soon everything can go back to the way it used to be.

For those who have lost their lives, for those who are still living in poverty and oppression, and for those who are struggling with their position as members of the national guard - Valeria has a message - she wants to let them all know that in this fight we are all brothers and sisters from the same nation.

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