Yo si puedo (Yes I can): Bolivia pais libre de analfabetismo or the end of illiteracy for Bolivia

20 December is the date when Bolivia will be declared free of illiteracy, something not many countries in the world can boast about. After three years of work with close to a million people, almost one in every nine Bolivians currently in the country, Bolivia is prepared to receive the best possible Christmas present for 2008.

Illiteracy figures in Bolivia, just like all other human development indicators are (or were) rather terrible, only surpassed in Latin America by those found in Haiti. This realisation was acted upon by president Evo Morales within days of being elected in December 2005 who asked Cuban officials for help in the implementation of a literacy campaign similar to that conducted in Cuba in the early 1960s.

The campaign benefitted from the collaboration of Cuban and Venezuelan specialists who managed the programme called ‘Yo si puedo’ (Yes, I can). But it was the consistent effort of about 60,000 people that permitted the programme to advance and reach this critical stage.

In the process, the Bolivian state had to bring solar panels to thousands of isolated communities so that people could follow their literacy lessons in the evenings. The Bolivian government also had to issue hundreds of thousands of glasses for those people who could not see or afford the glasses that would allow them to join the campaign.

The declaration of Bolivia as only the third country in the Americas free of illiteracy just in time for the approval of the new constitutional document by national referendum next January is certainly a propaganda coup for the MAS government. But it is the human dignity of those hundreds of thousands of people who can now sign their own names that we should remember. Just like in Cuba 57 years ago, their ‘veil of ignorance and darkness’ was lifted to join a sunnier future.