Between April and July of this year, the Indigenous Cultural and Training Centre(CCFI), coordinated by the Fraternity – International Humanitarian Federation(FIHF), offered literacy courses to Venezuelan indigenous people with a low level of education in their mother tongue and with little knowledge of the Portuguese language.
Sixteen people benefited from this course, which occurred in an in-person format.
Florencia Jalil, focal point of the Livelihoods and Lasting Solutions InterventionSector, and responsible for the Continuing Education and Development Program of the CCFI, says that “with the completion of the course, we can see it opened a door so that indigenous people could begin to read and write, and many want to continue.”
This was confirmed by one of the students who participated, Luis Alberto Liendro Cooper, who commented: “I am grateful for the opportunity I had to learn to read and write, and I want to continue learning.”
In the same way, the teacher Roselis Bastos, who taught the classes, says she feels pleased for having been a part of that training. She affirms she took on a great challenge in terms of the complexity she found, because she believed she would have to only deal with the Spanish language: “when I first got in touch with the students, I saw they used the language of their tribe, so it was a double challenge to deal with two languages from different cultures.”
Besides that, the teacher was surprised at the dedication shown by the students, and says: “It was very gratifying to see the performance of the students; we can see that in spite of the difficulties brought about by the dialect, there was an excellent assimilation and interaction in the process of teaching-learning.”
Aware of the difficulties which these immigrant populations go through, Roselis affirms: “another aspect I would like to highlight is the importance of the partnership of the institutions in promoting training and learning which ensures a social, cultural and professional inclusion of the Venezuelan immigrants, especially the indigenous ones, because many come without formal schooling or with incomplete schooling.”
And she adds: “The societies, the authorities need to be made aware, informed and engaged in promoting a citizenship without borders, which is a right, and above all, respect for the human beings that come here; for this reason, I want to extend my thanks to the Humanitarian Fraternity (FIHF), and I hope to be able to continue in this literacy training,” she says.
