Venezuelans learn the write stuff

[Judi Lynn]

Venezuelans learn the write stuff

Grace Livingstone in Caracas
Sunday December 14, 2003
The Observer

Her hair is tied in a long black ponytail and she has a tired, lined brown face. Luiza has 13 children. Now she walks, arms outstretched, across the stage towards President Hugo Chávez.

He opens his arms to her and she buries her head in his chest. The crowd whoops. The emotional embrace was shown live on all Venezuelan TV channels as 'Patriot' Luiza received a certificate for completing a three-month reading and writing course. She is no longer illiterate.

More than a million people have enrolled in Mission Robinson, a literacy campaign launched by Chávez's left-wing government. It is tinged with revolutionary evangelism. Tens of thousands of 'missionaries' have been recruited to teach the 'patriots' who enrol.

Soldiers - the 'Army of Light' - have distributed 80,000 TVs and video recorders to makeshift classrooms across the country, from city shanty towns to remote Indian villages. (snip/...)

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1106706,00.html

[impeach the gop]

1. Viva Chavez

May Christ protect him from the greedy cowardly bush regime. That's why bush hates him. Education is liberation.

[pescao]

2. how could anyone be against liberation?

Mission Robinson uses videos imported from Cuba. There is no discernible propaganda in the one we watch. It has the air of a 1970s' Open University programme; a clearly enunciating teacher is interspersed with pan-pipe music and on-screen writing exercises. Torrealba freezes the video at regular intervals to ask the class questions.

Teresa Pallen, 44 and unemployed said: 'This is the best thing that has happened round here. It keeps you down when you can't read and write. We're thankful to the President.' She wants to do a computer course next.

...

Chávez's popularity has soared ahead of a possible referendum on his presidency next year. Buoyed with success, he has become even more ambitious. His next campaign, to be launched on Christmas Day, aims to eliminate poverty entirely. Its name? Mission Christ.