Media Education

RAYMA , one of the few female cartoonists in Venezuela, speaks about the role that humor plays in resisting tyranny, and how cartoons are the thermometers by which we measure freedom. She believes that critical drawings are crucial to testing the strengths of a democracy. RAYMA worked at El Universal, one of Venezuela’s largest newspapers, for 19 years before she was fired last year after publishing a cartoon that mocked the legacy of Hugo Chávez and the state of the Venezuelan health care system. She remains defiant, and reminds us that freedom of expression should have no limits. Humor is the key to ending repression, RAYMA says, and stresses that we should teach our children to wield pens, not guns.