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Alfalit Nicaragua has been operating since 1962. For the past 47 years, 627,198 students have participated in our literacy, preschool, basic education and community development programs.

Background:

Nicaragua, officially the Republic of Nicaragua (Spanish: República de Nicaragua) is a representative democratic republic. It is the largest country in Central America with an area of 130,373 km2. The country is bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The Pacific Ocean lies to the west of the country, the Caribbean Sea to the east. . The capital city is Managua. Roughly one quarter of the nation’s population lives in the Nicaraguan capital, making it the second largest city in Central America.

Education:
Literacy (CIA WFB)
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 67.5%
male: 67.2%
female: 67.8% (2003 est.)

As of 1979, the educational system was one of the poorest in Latin America.Under the Somoza governance, limited spending on education and generalized poverty, which forced many adolescents into the labor market, constricted educational opportunities for Nicaraguans. One of the first acts of the newly elected Sandinista government in 1980 was an extensive and successful literacy campaign, using secondary school students, university students and teachers as volunteer teachers: it reduced the overall illiteracy rate from 50.3% to 12.9% within only five months. This was one of a number of large scale programs which received international recognition for their gains in literacy, health care, education, childcare, unions, and land reform. In September 1980, UNESCO awarded Nicaragua the “Nadezhda Krupskaya” award for the literacy campaign. This was followed by the literacy campaigns of 1982, 1986, 1987, 1995 and 2000, all of which were also awarded by UNESCO.[138]

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