Success Stories

After more than 20 years, one rural mother goes back to school to pick up where she left off.

Unlike many Mozambican women of her generation, Luisa Eduardo attended school when she was a young girl. But when Luisa was 14, her home was destroyed by a fire, leaving her family with nothing. And, with her parents unable to support her, she had no choice but to marry and leave school.

Mozambique’s history of colonialism and a 16-year civil war — coupled with customs that prohibited married women from attending school — left this country with one of the world’s highest illiteracy rates. More than 60 percent of adults cannot read and write, and illiteracy rates are even higher among women, leaving them with limited prospects. But U.S.-sponsored literacy instructors are helping rural Mozambicans, such as Luisa as part of the country’s major effort to educate its people.

More than 20 years after having to leave school, Luisa — now a divorced mother of four — returned to school in her remote village of Lioma. She became one of more than 4,000 adults to work with the literacy instructors in Zambezia Province, studying history, mathematics, science, geography and Portuguese. Through her studies, she learned to calculate the price of goods at the market and how to cultivate a vegetable garden … and she was able to do something she had never done before: help her children with their homework.

For Luisa Eduardo, this adult literacy program is just the beginning. She plans to continue the education she once had to leave behind, as she knows firsthand that it can open the door to a better job and a brighter tomorrow.

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