ABSTRACT
In 1961, the Revolutionary government in Cuba initiated a Literacy Campaign of great magnitude that became the vehicle for social change in the country; a vision that affirmed to Cuban citizens the value of education, health care, citizenship, professional development and the conception of family and community. With educational reform a high priority in the early years of the Cuban Revolution, more than 100,000 middle-class urban youth between the ages of ten and 19 traveled to remote areas of the country as literacy brigadistas as part of this Campaign, facing challenges that were not “easy, safe or immediately rewarding” (Kozol, 1978, pp. 348-349). They lived with peasant families for months at a time, sharing in the manual labor by day, and teaching reading and writing at night. More than half of those who volunteered as brigadistas were young women.
