The Venezuela Blackout And Our Transition to Colombia

As you have likely seen all over the news, since Thursday, March 7th, Venezuela has been in a national power blackout. Several important power plants are down, and it’s unclear when things will be back to normal. It could be a day, a week, or more.

(UPDATE: As of 3:28pm Tuesday, it appears 95% of the country has power again, and we’re waiting to see about internet. It seems things are coming and going, but things being completely back up today seems realistic now.)

Our number one concern is the health and safety of our teachers, and their families. Nobody should have to deal with that situation, and like everyone, we send our love and positive vibes to people of Venezuela at this difficult time.

The blackout, obviously, has affected our online students, who have been unable to take classes since the power went out. Thankfully, the vast majority have been understanding, and more concerned with the wellbeing of their teachers than with the lack of classes for a few days.

BaseLang has been hiring our teachers almost exclusively in Venezuela since the inception of the company. We have deep contacts there, the level of talent and English is incredible, and we’re able to provide a greater level of stability for people in an extremely difficult situation.

Unfortunately, it’s clear that the current regime is unwilling to invest in infrastructure, meaning this is unlikely to be the last time a national blackout happens. For us to continue long term in Venezuela would be foolish. It’s not clear yet at what point we will completely stop operations there, but it won’t be part of our plan for much longer.

What Are We Doing, Then?

We are unwilling to leave our team in Venezuela behind. We have over 200 amazing people with us there, and they are the backbone of the company.

So, we are offering our entire Venezuelan staff – every single person – an opportunity to leave Venezuela and earn a good salary in Colombian pesos, and living a much more stable life.

We’ll be helping them with moving costs, the transition over, and more.

Legal messiness mean we are doing this through an intermediary company, who will handle everything for us (so we don’t have to worry about visas after their first two years run up, etc.). The good news is, Colombia has maintained their borders open to Venezuelans. After all, years ago, the situation was the opposite – and Venezuela welcomed Colombians with open arms. Luckily, Colombia is returning the favor all these years later.

What Does This Mean For Students?

First, if you’re a current student, know that your teachers have the opportunity to stay with BaseLang, earning more, and living wherever they’d like in Colombia (they will continue to work from home).

It also means that some issues that have plagued BaseLang for years will go away, once this transition is completed. Internet will all but cease to be an issue, as things are more stable and faster in Colombia. And blackouts and the related last-minute teacher switches will also cease to be an issue.

Prices will stay the same. Our margins as a company will go down, but we don’t intend to pass those cost increases to you, the student.

We’ll also begin hiring Colombians for our online program. Our school in Medellin already is almost all Colombians teaching, but now we’ll have Colombians teaching online as well – meaning more variety of accent and slang.

We’ll continue to keep everyone updates as this transition happens. If you are a current student, as always, we’re here to help on support.