Educate 400 adults in rural Mexico

The adult literacy campaign ¡Alfabetiza! finished its second year of work in San Martín Esperillas. It has been a successful project in which we have worked for 6 weeks alongside 131 adults in regular classes and with 34 children in a 15 session workshop.

While talking about the project, volunteers emphasize on the objective of sharing knowledge; the process of learning while teaching.

“What we constantly say is: I come to teach and learn, and we encourage the community to take it to heart, they did. They told us: hold the yoke, take the corn. It’s been a great challenge for all of us. My student Inés makes a lot of fun of me because I don´t know how to make tortillas, she says: “Yes, teacher, you know how to read but you can´t get married”. This is something that gives new value and shows other perspectives on everyday life”. (Laura, 20 years old)

“You realize you don’t just live in your small world, but that, at the same time, there are other realities out there that you take part in. You can’t sit down and stay with your arms crossed”. (Diana, 18 years old)

Trying to invite the people of San Martín to speak up and express their knowledge, experiences or issues in different ways, we also carried out a community photography project in which they documented their daily life by taking photographs with a camera we gave them. We also printed the first issue of a community newspaper: Tsjo Kjin (“Wildflower” in their mother tongue, nguigua). This newspaper was edited by a local editorial board and it compiled texts by our students sharing the most significant stories from their community.

Besides giving classes and documentary activities, there was an embroidery workshop, responding to our diagnosis, which showed the need of enabling collective spaces for women in San Martín. 18 women attended, ranging a wide span of ages. Each of them shared their own techniques with the rest working with collective material. At the end, they interchanged their products.

Finally, we began working with the young women of San Martín, debating different ways of thinking themselves as a collective while observing their community, with the intention of forming a group of young men and women who want to improve their environment considering their own context.

The group of volunteers initiated the process of internal evaluation of the project on Saturday, August 16^th. Next year’s work (2015) will also be defined in the process. Soon we will post testimonies of our students in San Martin for you.

Statistics:

• Number of adult students   •   131
• Workshop for children attendants   •   34
• Number of groups   •   56
• Number of volunteer teachers   •   29
• Average students per teacher   •   5.24