In Chiapas, Mexico’s southernmost state, 13 out of every 100 adults cannot read or write. It is the highest illiteracy rate in the country, and it disproportionately affects women, older people, and members of indigenous communities living in the mountains and jungle regions. It is a number that is easy to glance over. But behind it stand people who cannot understand contracts, who cannot help their children with homework, who are cheated at the market because they cannot read the price tags.
On February 9, 2026, Mexico’s National Institute for Adult Education (INEA) officially recognized the program “Chiapas Puede.” In just one year, approximately 200,000 people have learned to read and write through this initiative. It is a number that needs a moment to settle. Two hundred thousand. That is equivalent to the entire primary school population of Uruguay or Costa Rica.
The program does not rely on school buildings or state infrastructure. It runs on volunteers. Thousands of literacy educators, the majority of them university students and community members, travel to the villages. They teach in study circles, small groups that meet in community halls, under trees, or in private kitchens. Instruction takes place in 13 different indigenous languages, because Chiapas is home to twelve indigenous groups, and for many of them, Spanish is not their first language.
UNESCO has accompanied and documented the program. Researchers and officials convened in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, the capital of Chiapas, to analyze the pedagogical challenges. One key finding: literacy only works when it begins in the learner’s mother tongue and respects local culture. One participant of a study circle, during a UNESCO visit, put it this way: “We want to keep learning. We want to sign with our own names and know math to sell our products. But without losing our traditions.”
Mexico’s national illiteracy rate has dropped from 4.1 to 3.9 percent as a result of the program. It sounds small. But it represents hundreds of thousands of changed lives. Women reading a letter for the first time. Grandfathers writing their names for the first time. People who no longer have to depend on others when it comes to their own affairs.
The program’s goal is to bring Chiapas’s illiteracy rate below four percent by December 2026. It is an ambitious target, but the numbers so far suggest it is within reach. Over 120,000 learners are currently actively enrolled.
What sets “Chiapas Puede” apart from many education programs is its approach. It is not a top-down campaign but a movement that grows from the ground up. The teachers are neighbors. The language is one’s own. The place is one’s own village. And the result is not just reading and writing, but dignity.
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