Day 6 - The Literacy Campaign

As I have said before, the ever more sophisticated weapons piling up in the arsenals of the wealthiest and the mightiest can kill the illiterate, the ill, the poor and the hungry, but they cannot kill ignorance, illness, poverty or hunger.
~ Fidel Castro

At the start of the Cuban Revolution, one of Fidel's goals was to eliminate illiteracy in Cuba, especially because 43% of the people in the countryside could not read or write. Hence, a national project called the Literacy Campaign was undertaken in 1961 to accomplish this difficult goal within one year. Young people, mostly university students, volunteered as brigadistas, who travelled to the Cuban countryside to teach people how to read and write. By the end of the Literacy Campaign, everyone had been brought up to a sixth grade reading and writing level (at minimum). Today, the literacy rate in Cuba is 99.8% (tied for first place in the world). The Literacy Campaign was also an important moment for women's rights and equality, because, as 60% of the brigadistas were female, it proved that in hard conditions, women could do anything just as well as men could.

Today was interesting because our lecture panel was composed of four people who had actually been part of the Literacy Campaign! It was really great to hear their first-hand accounts of the experiences they had during the campaign. It was especially interesting to hear Ines Rodriguez speak, who had been very frightened and "spoiled" (her words) when she joined the campaign at 16 years old and travelled from her Havana home to the countryside.

After our lecture we hopped on our tour bus and drove to Miramar where we visited the Literacy Campaign Museum. It was very interesting. The best part of the day was when the museum tour guide came out with an old file folder and gave it to Ines Rodriguez. She opened it up and was ecstatic to see that it held her Literacy Campaign application form and photo was in there! She had never seen it before this moment! It was such an emotional experience for her, and for us as well.

After the museum, we drove to a building that housed a huge wooden model of the entire province of Havana. It was really neat to see the mini version of our ENSAP building and to pick out the other landmarks.

Later, some friends and I went to the Hotel National, ordered some Daquiris and lounged by the pool. Unfortunately, the beautiful sun disappeared as soon as we got there, but it was still warm enough weather, nonetheless.

Dinner at ENSAP was followed by an absolutely gorgeous lightning storm that we watched from our balcony.

Another great day in Havana! Tomorrow we travel to the Southern coast of the island to visit the Bay of Pigs museum!

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Part of trip: Havana, Cuba

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