Luisa Campos Director of Havana’s “Museum of Literacy” and of the “Si, yo puedo”
Global Literacy Campaign.
The Cuban Literacy Campaign was a year-long effort to abolish illiteracy in Cuba after the Cuban Revolution. It was the world’s most ambitious and organized literacy campaign.
Before 1959 the official literacy rate for Cuba was between 60% and 76%, largely because of lack of education access in rural areas and a lack of instructors. As a result, the Cuban government dubbed 1961 the “year of education” and sent “literacy brigades” out into the countryside to construct schools, train new educators, and teach the predominantly illiterate peasants to read and write. The campaign was “a remarkable success.” By its completion, 707,212 adults were taught to read and write, raising the national literacy rate to 96%.
The Literacy Campaign was also designed to enhance contact between sectors of society that would not usually interact. As Fidel Castro put it in 1961 while addressing literacy teachers, “You will teach, and you will learn.”
The Cuban literacy program Yo sí Puedo, created to teach adults how to read and write has extended with great results to various countries in Latin America and the rest of the world.
Wed. June 1, 7-9pm free/donation requested
Encuentro 5 (E5)
9A Hamilton Place
Boston, Ma
Near Park St. T and the on the same street as the Orpheum Theatre
Tuesday May 31 7-9pm free/donation requested
Center for Marxist Education in Central Square, (a smaller space)
550 Massachusetts Avenue (Central Square)
Cambridge, MA
