Cuba's Yo, Si Puedo. A global literacy movement?

Abstract

Since it was first trialled in Haiti in 2000, Cuba’s Yo, Si Puedo model for mounting mass adult literacy campaigns has mobilised over six million people in twenty-nine countries to acquire basic literacy. Despite this global reach, the model has attracted almost no close study from adult education and literacy researchers in the English-speaking world. Cuba’s unique south-south approach to international aid and cooperation and its extensive experience with mass literacy campaigns over more than five decades makes this model a classic case study for postcolonial education theory and practice. This paper begins this analysis, by identifying some of the key elements of the Yo Si Puedo model and its emancipatory potential. It is based on evidence collected in an extended participatory action research project during Yo, Si Puedo’s deployment in Timor-Leste’s national literacy campaign (2007-2011) and in a recent pilot study of the model in three Indigenous communities in Australia (2012-2014).