Major Blow to Illiteracy Among Native Groups

[Judi Lynn]

Major Blow to Illiteracy Among Native Groups
By José Adán Silva

MANAGUA, Aug 26, 2010 (IPS) - For 46 years, Nicanor García didn't know that his first name was seven letters long and that the first letter was also the start of the names of his country, Nicaragua, and his father, Norberto. He found out just eight months ago, when he finally learned how to read and write.

In January, a brigade of university students from cities on this Central American country's Pacific coast reached the remote village of Bilwaskarma in the eastern jungle area known as the North Atlantic Autonomous Region (RAAN) as part of a literacy campaign targeting the Miskito Indians who have lived there for centuries.

Along with García, more than 60,000 adult members of the Miskito and Mayangna native groups have now learned to read and write in that inhospitable Caribbean coastal region that the leftwing government of Daniel Ortega has proclaimed an "illiteracy-free indigenous territory" because the illiteracy rate has plunged from 40 to just over four percent.

"I used to have to sign with an ink-stained thumb, but now I can write out my whole name," García told IPS on a visit to Managua this week, where he was taking part in the commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the great National Literacy Crusade.

The 1980 literacy campaign was also promoted by Ortega, after the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) guerrillas -- now the governing party -- overthrew the 1934-1979 Somoza family dictatorship. The 1980 campaign, which brought the illiteracy rate down from 52 to 12 percent, was relaunched in 2007 when Ortega became president again. This time around, the National Literacy Campaign has used the Cuban "Yo si puedo" or "Yes I Can" teaching method that has been adopted by several other Latin American nations and a number of countries in Africa as well.

More:
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[Peace Patriot]

1. We have seen, time and again, how the U.S. supported rightwing in Latin America doesn't give a damn

about literacy and education for the poor, and utterly neglects the poor majority of their countrymen and women in this and many other ways, whereas one the first things that leftist governments attend to is educational programs. Venezuela comes to mind, with the Chavez government initiating programs that wiped out illiteracy in five years, and poured profits from the oil industry into education, including providing free college educations to the poor and massively supporting the remarkable Venezuelan Youth Orchestra system. While the U.S. pours billions of our tax dollars into rightwing political groups all over Latin America, through the USAID and other agencies--teaching them how to oppose leftist governments, how to promote rightwing propaganda and how to destabilize their own countries--Cuba has led the fight for literacy and has also provided great assistance in health care to the poor.

Could left and right priorities be any clearer? Could fucked up U.S. government priorities be any clearer? The rightwing, backed by the U.S., doesn't want literate, informed, empowered poor people--the most bottom-line condition for a healthy democracy. The rightwing here, as well, has attacked our educational system, and, combined with bankster looting and war profiteer looting--all encouraged by our government, no matter which party is in charge of it--have turned the best educational system in the world into a critically underfunded, inferior, failing system--that portends the end of U.S. technical, scientific and cultural achievements.

Well, we shall pay dearly for this corpo-fascist assault on education in the U.S. The 21st century promises to be Latin America's century, not ours. Their focus on education certainly is the harbinger of their potential success.

[Billy Burnett]

2. There is a literacy museum in Havana.

It contains millions of letters written to Fidel Castro by formerly illiterate adults thanking him for leading the revolution that created the Cuban literacy project.

I've read some of the letters there, and they are so moving that they could cause godzilla to break down in tears.


Thank you for posting this story.


Yes I Can!

Yes We Can!


Viva Cuba!