Luanda, Angola (Prensa Latina) A total of 1,139,729 Angolans were literate from 2012 until today with the Cuban teaching method “Yo si puedo” (“Yes, I can”), with the coordination of 42 advisers from the island.

“Due to this result, Angola is the first African country to have over a million literate people using this method”, declared Alfredo Díaz, Cuban advisor of the Angolan Ministry of Education.

The program is used in 18 provinces in Angola and in only 13 weeks, people who are over 15 learn to read and write.

He added that it has been a policy of the Angolan government since 2012 to rehabilitate education in general, specially for adults and one of the main goals was to restore literacy.

Cuban specialists advise Angolan facilitators who carry the main weight of the program execution applied in Haiti for the first time, and spread to 30 other countries, using audio-visual media to support the teaching process.

In addition, in 176 municipalities the results of the advisers are excelent, Díaz declared.

He highlighted the support offered by churchs, the Armed Forces, the Women Organization, the Ministry of Interior and Youth Training and the ruling party Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola.

This year the program is taken to prisons. In some provinces like Luanda, Bie and Huila, facilitators are inmates formed by Cubans.

The Angolan Government wants 85 percent of the population registered as literate by 2025.

In 2006 the Cuban literacy method, “Yo si puedo” (“Yes, I can”),  got the Sejong Award granted by Unesco.