Milenio: Óscar Rodríguez
Oaxaca, Oaxaca • Her name is Manuela Hernández Velasquez. At 100 years of age, she obtained her elementary school certificate, proving that it is never late to study.
Doña Manuelita, as she is known, was born on June 17, 1913, in the city of Tuxtepec and although the years cause a decline in her physical energy and she suffers from tired eyes, the clarity of her assessment of education is exact. Upon being asked her advice for young people, she states:
"The best career is studying."In this regard, the Head of the Planning Department of the State Institute of Adult Education [IEEA], Norma Jiménez López, said that the IEEA serves 7,754 adults like Doña Manuelita, 65 years and older, which represents 9% of the population.
"Of these, 75% are women and 25% men; 85% are in the literacy program or elementary school, and 15% secondary [junior high]," she explained.Jiménez López said that
"adults who have the resolve to continue their studies deserve double recognition since in addition to dealing with the challenge of age prejudice, they also deal with the issue of health, as it goes on deteriorating as the years pass."She said that in order to provide quality educational service, IEEA advisers have the mission to be very patient with the elderly:
"Advisers must listen and value the knowledge the seniors have acquired throughout their life and work. They must encourage them to continue studying. For many seniors, their dream is to show that they are capable, and it is never too late to achieve that."She also said that
"on occasion, the study circles become a space for recreation and for strengthening the self-esteem of our seniors."Doña Manuela Hernández explained that when she was small, she only attended the first year of primary school in the Curate village because her parents were very poor.
"My uncle Don Fernando Campos helped me enter school, but the following year, I already had to wash and iron, and they couldn't let me go because they needed my work."She suggests that the great value of education is that
"it makes us less ignorant, it civilizes us. Every time I learn something, I tell myself, now they are not going to call me stupid," she says.She mentions that her great passion is reading. She likes to read the newspapers.
"The big problem is that my eyes are very tired, and then there are times that I can no longer read. I need eyeglasses to do it."Manuelita recommends that everyone continue studying because through studying is how a love of reading takes us and that "makes us better people," she concluded. Spanish original