Munoz Inglese


Munoz Inglese

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One world encompassing many worlds
Notes on education for the XXI century
Vernor Muñoz1
Krishnamurti used to say that each one of us is the product of our accumulated past and
that the world is an extension of ourselves2; undoubtedly, he was also referring to the fact that
the future can be built upon the foundation of a liberating learning process, not based on
chance or selfish designs.
The future of education and its mechanisms of protection, just as with any phenomenon
of culture, will always be the result of our vision and actions in the present since reality does
not exist independently from humanity, nor are knowledge and intentions detached from each
individual’s sovereign and tumultuous learning.
History is fashioned thus – with one hand grasping the present and the other reaching out for
the future, pushing and pulling us towards the condition of equality that we should regardless
of ethnicity, gender, age or any condition whatsoever.
By proposing a framework of education for the twenty-first century, we are committing
ourselves to attempt to eliminate certain practices and those patterns of social and cultural
behaviors rooted in ideas of human inferiority or supremacy, as well as to spur democratization
processes that lead to the eradication of discrimination and poverty.
Foundation of a living right
Many attempts have been made to explain the miracle of life, many of which are valid,
although all of them incomplete. Biological, chemical, religious, legal, metaphysical, even
physical definitions have suggested the primacy of life without having defined, however, what
exactly it is.
Some of the definitions were adopted by opposition, i.e. explaining what life is not, while others
were adopted by completion, seeking to include every existential manifestation.
We know, however, that death is part of life and that even in molecular transformation
processes life is a road leading from one stage to another, just as a river follows a course that
conforms to the shape of the earth’s surface.
For this reason, fundamentalists’ explanations have given way to a renewed intentionality that,
without renouncing heuristics, focuses on dignifying the elements that make life possible,
which are a part of it and form a complex system of energy and passion, never mind the
redundancy.
1 UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education.
2 Krishnamurti, Jiddu. Notas auténticas de las conferencias y discusiones en Ojia y Sarobia. 1940. The Star
publishing trust. México, 1941, p. 30-31.
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The learning process as a crucial factor
Life makes its way through the shadows of lifelessness. Its pulse permeates the rhythm of all
beings and it extends itself outward just like the orderly heavens above, and in its midst
individuals construct their principle tool of survival: learning.
To learn means to adapt, to collaborate and to transform the environment. It is the process by
means of which bodies communicate, propose ideas and carry them through; hence, it
becomes every society’s and every biology’s organizing principle.
Far from constraining learning to a cerebral activity of homo sapiens, there is evidence
showing that the functions accompanying the appearance of the neocortex in mammals only
complemented the primitive functions of our ancestors’ visceral brains.3 Undoubtedly, these
new functions ensued from ancient interactions of primitive humans who learned to understand
the world, while populating it with the body of their spirits.
Every step of that learning process has created history and memory. Indeed, the materiality of
the body has made it all possible4 because the crux of the matter is that the processes of life
and learning are the same.5 He who does not learn, dies.
Learning always leads to a change in the body’s nervous system,6 therefore - taking a step
further, it means a change within the whole body, the environment and dreams, because
nothing exists in isolation from the processes in which life manifests itself.
To insist that the learning process only takes place in the brain is to deny that learning guides
the processes of evolution, which cannot be attributed solely to the late appearance of the
neocortex, thereby fuelling the false Cartesian dualism that separates intuition and thought.7
In fact, learning involves an amazing number of processes within the complex human body,
whose memory transcends the brain’s activity.
Knowledge of the fact that learning is such a vital function is a paradigmatic finding because it
allows us to understand why education deals with life itself, and the reason why it should be
dignified and protected.
Principles of Positive Law
Learning is an element of life, an organizational system integrating all ecological phenomena
that make evolution possible.
Given this hypothesis, it is valid to affirm that the learning process bursts into the human being
by means of cognitive processes that reflect culture and society.
Although the learning process is inherent to humans, it can also be developed and stimulated
through the cultural structure known as education.
Education boosts the learning process and gives it a holistic meaning, thus becoming a
reference point for life and furthermore, a stimulus to it.
3 Le Doux, Joseph. El cerebro emocional. Ariel/Planeta. Barcelona, 1999., p. 103.
4 Maturana, Humberto y Pörksen, Bernhard. Del ser al hacer. Los orígenes de la biología del conocer. J.C. Sáez
Editor. Santiago de Chile, 2004, p. 25.
5 Assmann, Hugo, Placer y ternura en la educación. Hacia una sociedad aprendiente. Narcea. Madrid, 2002, pp.
49-52.
6 Leahey, Thomas Hardy y Harris, Richard Jackson. Aprendizaje y cognición. Prentice Hall. Madrid, 1998, p. 4
7 Ibídem, p. 279.
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The first conclusion to be drawn from this is that education has an unquestionable ethic,
philosophic and scientific legitimacy. Therefore, the right to education is not only a universal
human right, but also a foundation of ecology and development.
The second conclusion shatters the stagnant dualist theory of law, specifically the part dealing
with the right to an education.
Indeed, the theory of law being a structure that validates life’s dignity has definitely overcome
the belief in a natural law (of divine or naturalistic origin) on one hand, and in a positive law (of
rational nature) on the other.
This human right thus understood is not a natural or positive principle but an element in the
language of and for life.
The right of education focuses on the protection of the learning process as a crucial element
that rejects the efficiency connotation characteristic of positive law, as well as the immanent -
and thus unchanging, connotation typical of natural law.
The Right to Learn
Human rights protect learning from an ethical and legal point of view. Evidently, I refer to a
higher right that does not define vital processes, but rather protects them. It is also a cognitive
process because it involves reflexive and practical actions carried out during everyday tasks.
That process departs from the reality of a learning society,8 it can only take place in a higher
context, what Assmann defines as a “cognitive ecology,”9 and in which all beings, human or
not, participate; one in which everyone should have a place: an ecology that at the same time
has “a world encompassing many other worlds.”10 Another possible world.
Developing an ethical and legal protection of learning is not only essential to ensure some of
the most significant learning processes, but also in directing the creation of language (how the
world is perceived) as an option to promote human development.
If according to Maturana “we live in the language we create,”11 in all certainty this language
mirrors an intentionality, not necessarily rational, that may be directed towards dignifying living
creatures, equality, peace and the common good.
Learning is unavoidable or rather, its avoidance leads to extinction. It is unavoidable because
action entails knowledge and vice versa: knowledge implies doing.12
Therefore, I infer that he or she who does not act, learns not and for this reason, education
must be advanced as a human right that honors life as a state of learning.
Returning to education’s fundamental objectives is the main idea stated herein, although we
know that the regard for education as a human right is still at an early stage. Education must
face hard challenges from opposing forces that continue to envision it as the market’s
8 Assmannn, Hugo, op cit, p. 51.
9 Ibídem, p. 23.
10 Ibídem, p. 28.
11 Maturana, Humberto y Pörksen, Bernhard, op. cit, p. 38.
12 Maturana, Humberto y Varela, Francisco. El árbol del conocimiento. Editorial Universitaria. Santiago de Chile,
1998, p. 13.
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disciplinary instrument and consequently, as a form of service (not a right) that is subordinate
to the economy’s interests rather than those of human beings.
The purpose of education is to construct useful knowledge that will dignify peoples’ lives.
We are at a point where education can make the difference between life and death. For this
reason, to regard education solely in terms of a social or cultural right, is to deny its entire
dimension. Perhaps we are also at a point where we should start to discuss learning as a
human right because teaching how to learn is probably the most important pedagogical course
we must promote.
This shall be the future of our struggles in the new century, focusing on overcoming inequality,
exclusion and violence.
A thorn in one’s side
Upon the enactment of internation law concerning human rights, educational systems were
called upon to champion the formation of a citizenry respectful of the dignity and rights of all
persons, thereby bringing about a fundamental crisis that demanded a redefinition of the very
nature of national education and exposed all the mechanisms of exclusion in access to
education and to educational content.
The existence of a patriarchal superstructure that binds practically all social, political, economic
and cultural relationships constitutes a formidable barrier to progress in the realization of
human rights.
The social framework of patriarchic beliefs and behaviors has established a conception of the
State as a stratified, pyramidal organization, which after time has become fertile ground for
systems of exclusion that hinder reciprocal and egalitarian dialogue between human beings.
That patriarchal framework has given form to educational languages, concepts and models
and has had a dramatic impact on the institution of learning by validating and reproducing,
from generation to generation, stereotypes, prejudices and inequities, sometimes even
overriding the will of decision-makers,13 and subjugating multiple historical and cultural
identities to one single educational project14 that is prone, therefore, to institutionalized
discrimination.
That framework of inequities and asymmetries, actually predating our educational systems,
exercises a decisive influence on the organization of our schools. It is a system that defines
off-balance relationships between people,15 placing men and women in a hierarchy of
domination that has been advanced as “natural” and that goes beyond gender to include
sexist, racist and nationalist discourses.16
13 Millennium Project. Task Force Education. Toward universal primary education: investments, incentives and
institutions. P. 24.
14 Bolívar, Antonio. Ciudadanía y escuela pública en el contexto de diversidad cultural. Revista Mexicana de
Investigación Educativa. ENE-MAR 2004, Vol. 9, Núm 20.
15Peoples Movement for Human Rights Learning (PDHRE). Transforming the patriarchal order into a human rights
system toward economic and social justice for all. New York. www.pdhre.org.
16 Herrera Flores, Joaquín. De habitaciones propias y otros espacios negados. Una teoría crítica de las
opresiones patriarcales. Instituto de Derechos Humanos de la Universidad de Deusto. Número 33. Bilbao,
España, 2005., p. 29.
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Under the protection of patriarchal ideologies, a concept of “Development” has been devised
that is more closely linked to the distribution of goods and economic resources than to the
possibility of collective learning for overcoming adversities.
The dissolution of this system of inequities will require going forward with the most necessary
of historic changes since it will entail a complete transformation of societies and cultures to
enable the coexistence of women and men as equals.17
As Bourdieu suggests, questioning these relationships of domination makes way for a virtual
reconstruction of human civilization on more solid ground.18 But the question remains the
same: Are we willing to take on this challenge?
Poverty and limited access to education and health services contribute to the denial of
economic, social and cultural rights to historically discriminated groups, while patriarchal
traditions multiply the obstacles that prevent women from assuming leadership roles and
participating in decision-making processes.19
The framework of structured inequality and discrimination that is rooted in socialization
processes and the construction of gender stereotypes in many of our educational systems,20
also affects children and adolescents, who commonly are conditioned for or incited to intolerant
or openly violent behaviors.
Examining the construction of masculinity within the institution of education and the role it plays
in the process of development is not therefore simply an analytic exercise, but rather has
useful and urgent implications for improving the quality of life in all countries.21
From investment to a state of equality
The gulf between intentions and actions in education manifests itself in the framework of
patriarchal inequalities and asymmetries, which promote the fallacy of macroeconomic
development being the main objective of education, which is usually considered an expense
and not a human right.
We certainly all expect education to yield economic benefits, but believing this result of
education to be its foremost objective is another matter.22
Therefore, many of the arguments and claims concerning the indisputable need for investment
in education reduce the rights of girls, boys and adolescents to vague elements of
macroeconomic considerations, like the notion that girls should be schooled primarily in order
to accelerate per capita growth.23
17 Lagarde y de los Ríos, Marcela. Los cautiverios de las Mujeres: madresposas, monjas, putas, presas y locas.
UNAM, México,2001, p 884 p.345
18 Bourdieu,Pierre. La domination masculine. Editions du Seuil, Paris, 1999.
19 INSTRAW. Human Rights of Women: New Challenges. Beijing at 10: Putting policy into practice, 2005, p.9
20 Arenas, Gloria. La cara oculta de la escuela. Estudios y Ensayos. Centro de publicaciones de la Universidad
de Málaga, España, 1999, p. 1.
21 Greig, Alan, Kimmel, Michel, Lang, James. Men, masculinities: Development: broadening our work towards
gender equality. UNDP. Gender in Development. Monograph series No. 10. May, 2000, p.2.
22 Muñoz, Vernor. Informe del Relator Especial de la ONU sobre el Derecho a la Educación. E/CN.4/2005/50, op
cit, parr. 13-15.
23 Matz, Peter. Costs and benefits of education to replace child labour. ILO. International Programme on the
elimination of child labor (IPEC), 2002 y Abu-Ghaida, Dina and Klase, Stephan. The economic and human
development costs of missing the Millennium Development Goal on Gender Equity. World Bank. May 2004, entre
muchos otros.
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Economic growth does not always lead to human development, nor does an adequate budget
for education guarantee that resources will be invested in those who need them the most.
Consequently, it is improper to consider the fulfillment of the right to education as a
determining factor of productive or commercial efficiency, since there is no clear relationship
between per capita income and social equity either, especially in peripheral economies.
This utilitarian perspective is detrimental to the dignity of young girls, female adolescents and
women because it draws attention away from their needs and misstates the essential
objectives of education. For this reason, the strategy has failed in raising the awareness of
those in government and financial organizations and has resulted in delays or refusals to
modify public policies that validate and perpetuate discrimination.
It is obvious that educational systems must change the objectives and strategies that are not
conceived to dignify human beings,24 but it is also certain that many of the greatest problems
facing education are not limited to the school systems but rather are found within the broader
and essentially discriminatory socioeconomic environment. This is one factor that reveals the
failure of educational reforms, by means of which it is hoped that education will solve the social
and economic problems that politicians have not had the will to resolve directly.
Rhetoric in favor of the rights of girls, boys and adolescents has done nothing to change the
fact that education continues to be one of the last priorities in budgeting considerations and
state policy-making.25
The outlook continues to be bleak: 56% of the world population of school age still lives in
countries that have not achieved gender parity in primary education, and in the case of
secondary education, the figure rises to 87%, given that the disadvantages facing adolescents
continue to intensify.26
At the close of year 2005, we became aware that the objective of gender parity provided for in
the Millennium Development Goals was not met in 94 out of 149 countries, from which data is
available.
Eighty-six countries are in danger of not achieving gender parity even by the year 2015;
seventy-six countries have not even realized gender parity in primary education.27 Girls
continue to suffer from these disparities and female youngsters with disabilities and the
indigenous continue to be the poorest of the poor.
In any case, the notion of parity, which involves a simple count of young girls and female
adolescents enrolled in school, does not reflect the more substantive concept of gender
equality envisioned by the Beijing Declaration and its Platform for Action (1995) and therefore
is useless in evaluating progress made in the quality of education.
What is certain is that one hundred and twenty million boys and girls continue to have no
access to education and at least twenty-three countries run the risk of not achieving universal
primary education by the year 2015.28
24 UNESCO Asia and Pacific Regional Bureau for Education on behalf of the Sub-regional EFA Forum for East
and Southeast Asia and the UN Thematic Working Group on EFA. Guidelines for Preparing Gender Responsive
EFA Plans.
25 World Economic Forum. Women’s Empowerment: Measuring the Global Gender Gap. Geneva, 2005, p.1.
26 UNESCO Institute for statistics. Global education digest, Montreal, 2005.
27Global Monitoring Report (EFA). UNESCO 2006.
28 Global Monitoring Report EFA. UNESCO 2006. Panorámica del informe. 2005.
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In South Asia, 23.5 million girls do not attend school and in Central and West Africa, practically
half of all girls are also excluded.29
To this scenario should be added 10 million boys and girls in the Arab world who receive no
formal schooling,30 thousands of Roma children who face discrimination in Europe, hundreds
of thousands of schoolchildren who suffer the consequences of poverty and inequity in North
and South America, and 25% of the population above the age of 15 in Central America who
are illiterate, most of whom are poor girls or women, are indigenous people and live in rural
areas.31
On the American continent, many countries have been subjected in recent decades to political
and institutional reforms that have sought to reduce public spending and eliminate social and
economic programs, and have had a serious impact on education.
Upon carrying out these reforms, many Latin American states have had to nearly eliminate
their social assistance functions and abandon their guarantees of economic, social and cultural
rights, which has resulted in a substantial decline in the funding of education, consequently
aggravating the asymmetries.
In many cases, military budgets continue to grow to the detriment of education and at this rate,
according to the most optimistic projections, meeting the goal of universal primary education
will take at least ten more years than expected. In 2015, there will still be forty-seven million
children not attending school, and forty-seven countries will not meet the objective of universal
schooling until practically the middle of the next century. Currently, in these countries, the
mothers of 75% of all girls and boys lack a formal education as well.32
Consequently, the search for opportunities and alternatives should facilitate a new
interpretation of the processes of democratization in all spheres of public activity that ensures
that minors are included in decision-making and the mechanisms of accountability for adults.
Child domestic labor, whether it is performed for salary or in conditions amounting to slavery,
continues to be a principle source of exploitation and violence against children and has
reprehensibly pulled 250 million girls and boys out of school, nearly a fourth of whom have not
even reached the age of ten.33
Adolescent marriage, pregnancy and motherhood pose a direct threat to educational
opportunities, and the matter is compounded by the absence of sex education, which has also
aggravated the HIV/AIDS pandemic and has hindered the construction of a masculinity that is
sensitive, responsible and happy.
The protection of very young and adolescent girls form the causes of exclusion related to
sexuality and gender-based violence at school not only demands world-wide attention of the
highest priority but also involves and commits the entire educational apparatus, from the
production of textbooks to the construction of sanitary facilities to the hiring, awareness-raising
and professional training of teachers.
29 UNICEF. Progress for children. Number 2, New York, april 2005, p. 4.
30 Bahrain Tribune, 28 june 2005.
31 PNUD. Segundo Informe sobre Desarrollo Humano en Centroamérica y Panamá. 2003. p. 31
32 PNUD. Informe sobre desarrollo humano 2005: La cooperación internacional ante una encrucijada: ayuda al
desarrollo, comercio y seguridad en un mundo desigual. New York, 2005, p. 7- 49.
33 http://www.hrea.org/conversations/child-labour.php
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This is one of many challenges we will face in the years to come that include eliminating those
notorious means of excluding disabled persons, migrant groups, the imprisoned, indigenous
populations, ethnic and cultural minorities such as the Dalits and Roma and, let us not forget,
those brutally forced out of school by military conflicts.
It is estimated that at least half of the 120 million boys and girls who receive no formal
education live in countries plagued by warfare now or in the recent past.
Of the 3.6 million persons who have died in wars since 1990, nearly half of them were
children.34
Quality, content and diversity
We have demonstrated repeatedly that access to schools, in and of itself, is not a guarantee of
any kind and that fostering quality education, based on learning and the fulfillment of human
rights, is essential to developing an effective resistance to all forms of exclusion and
discrimination,35 given that gender stereotypes, threats to children’s emotional security and
curricula that are insensitive to diversity all work together to obstruct the fulfillment of the right
to education.36
Resistance to the function of education in accordance with its true purpose obstructs
meaningful learning, since knowledge gained without the development of a personality
respectful of human rights is substandard knowledge. Consequently, the only relevant and
adequate kind of education is that which is based on, implements and bolsters human rights.
Quality, therefore, cannot be reduced to some quantifiable measurement of efficiency, but
rather it encompasses the full scope of human commitment to the present and future of all
persons.
The right to education constitutes a collective responsibility involving respect for the
individuality of all persons; it is diversity put into practice, insofar as learning entails recognition
and respect for the other, whether him or her, and therefore acknowledging the possibility of
consensus, while being willing to accept dissent and promote respectful dialogue aimed at
peaceful coexistence.
However, if we expect educational systems to promote intercultural practices, we will be
obligated to reflect on a redefinition of the State, because the coordination of democratization
processes is our most important challenge at hand if we are to transform the public sector and
the education sector in particular.37
The emerging nature of political, economic and territorial relationships would seem to be
gradually replacing the national reference point with that of a particular region or the world,38
for which reason students should be encouraged to respect civilizations other than their own,39
34 UNICEF. Estado mundial de la Infancia. 2005. La infancia amenazada. New York, 2004, p. 10.
35 Muñoz, Vernor. E/CN.4/2005/50, op cit, parr 8-9.
36 Plan de acción de la primera fase (2005-2007) del Programa Mundial de Educación en Derechos Humanos,
parr. 13.
37 En términos similares, Krawczyk, Nora y Vieira, Vera Lúcia. “Estudos comparados nas análises sobre política
educacional da América Latina”. EN: América Latina: Estado e reformas numa perspectiva comparada. Cortez
Editora. Sao Paulo, 2003, p. 116.
38 Una tesis parecida se encuentra en: Vélez De La Calle, Claudia. “La libertad de enseñanza en un contexto
intercultural, su dialogicidad y sus retos en la globalidad”. EN: www.genesis.amigomed.edu.co.
39 Artículo 29 inciso c) de la Convención sobre los derechos del niño y la niña.
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and this suggests that the matter of interculturality should be fully incorporated into all
educational systems.
In addition, the necessary construction of active, inclusive, responsible and autonomous
citizenries should be on a foundation of cultures, languages, native traditions40 and common
law, as well as of the deconstruction and interpretation of human rights.
That interaction within the sphere of autonomous peoples and individuals leads to an
extremely rich learning and encourages the strengthening of aptitudes and opportunities, given
that the greater the wealth of endogenous educational experiences, the better and more
comprehensive will be those resources allocated to education.41
There are some international trends espousing a conception of the right to education based on
pedagogical standards form which is derived a standardized and rationalistic educational
system. These standards could be of some importance, but they also entail formal, conceptual
and linguistic relationships that reflect a patriarchal model disguised as social cohesion, which
in the end banishes and discriminates.
By its own nature, this model fears its foretold defenestration. Perhaps, for that reason, it
insists on subjecting all processes of socialization to the same scale and measure.
Homogeneity is an unattainable goal in education, since the steadfast will of the nation-state is
incompatible with interculturality. The pressure on indigenous linguistic minorities to give up
their mother tongues, for example, demonstrates the intolerance that fosters patriarchism.
Attempts to eliminate our young people’s language and their own peculiar art of expression
also constitute a form of violence against them that has no place in educational requirements.
The right to education for all peoples begins with the need to maintain and express an
essential sense of belonging and a sense of one’s roots, which are related to another sense,
that of resistance framed by social, cultural and political autonomy.
Moreover, this right to education involves developing ways of guaranteeing the enrichment of
educational forms based on the realities and aspirations of the people themselves.
However, those in favor of conventional systems are averse to the new concept of education
based on interculturality and they fear to tread near it as if it were an abyss, since it goes
beyond the mechanical approach of their pedagogy, which serves market demands.
According to the predominant model of traditional educational systems, learning is considered
a product, just as nature is transformed into a commodity.
The same systems in place for protecting human rights have on occasion succumbed to that
trend, rejecting the supremacy of economic, social and cultural rights, to which a
“programmatic” or “progressive” character has been formally attributed.
The “programmatic” imperative of economic, social and cultural rights is motivated by a
rationality that leads to inequality because it focuses on a concept of the State bolstered by a
working dysfuctionality derived from the poor distribution of wealth.
40 Actualmente habitan 40 millones de indígenas latinoamericanos-as, que hablan 500 lenguas diferentes y una
incalculable cantidad de dialectos.
41 Instituto Interamericano de Derechos Humanos. Campaña educativa sobre derechos humanos y derechos
indígenas. San José, 2003, p. 173.
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In practice, therefore, the progressive character of these human rights has signified an
authorization of States to violate them. In the case of education, we have experienced
moreover a sharp decline not only because millions of boys, girls and adolescents still do not
attend school, but also because educational content, in many cases, is more geared toward
the needs of employers than peoples’ legitimate aspirations, thereby obstructing the
construction of learning processes, with consequences we have been warning about
throughout this exposition.
The reaches of memory
I must say, however, that none of these aspirations constitute new voices in history because
the world has grown form these roots and because hope has also learned to reap its benefits
since humanity was in its infancy.
The historical character of human rights has a dynamic drive that cannot easily be stopped and
that is present in every ecology, in every body and motion.
Every dream and every struggle leaves behind its wake. In the same way, every regulation of
rights on the old shelves of the UNO deals with the living memory of peoples, persons, girls,
grandmothers who lived by raising their voices in opposition to oppression and death.
The voices have come this far. From here on, the learning that was planted by hardships is
blossoming. Now it is up to us to give meaning to that memory, so that there will no longer be
inequality, no more closed doors, no more empty classrooms.
If despite everything, nothing happens, it will be time to begin anew and look back at what we
have done with the simplest of rights and the most arduous of conquests, which is to live and
grow with others.
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