Over half a million citizens of 16 countries currently use the Cuban method “Yes, I can” to learn to read and write.

Up to now, a total of two million 160 thousand persons in nations of three continents have benefited from the method created by Cuban professor Leonela Ines Relys Diaz, reported the Agencia de Informacion Nacional (AIN) quoting Cuban education officials.

The Cuban literacy program is now being applied in Venezuela, Paraguay, Argentina, Mexico, Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil, Peru, Honduras, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, New Zealand, Mozambique, El Salvador, Colombia and Guinea Bissau.

In Grenada, Ecuatorial Guinea, South Africa, French Guiana, Timor Leste and Haiti authorities are working to apply the method to reduce illiteracy in just 65 days with the help of TV and video equipment.

The method originally written in Spanish, has been translated into Portuguese, English, Creole, Quechua, Aymara and other languages.

Venezuela, the first to massively apply the Cuban method, was declared free of illiteracy on October 28, 2005, second in Latin America after Cuba which achieved such a feat in 1961, when over 1.5 million of its citizens learned to read and write.

According to the United Nations Education, Science and Culture Organization (UNESCO), about 861 million persons, that is 20 percent of all the planet´s adults, are illiterate. Of that figure, two thirds are women.

Also, 113 million children do not attend school and lack access to basic education.

For that reason, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution that establishes a Decade of Adult Literacy from 2003 to 2012, in order to boost world efforts to reduce the high and persistent indicators of illiteracy, to which Cuba contributes modestly with its experience.

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