Through the electronic messaging cell phone service commonly known as Whatsapp, the three states of the Yucatan Peninsula (Yucatán, Campeche and Quintana Roo), will launch a new model of teaching the Maya language.
A first stage will be for teacher training and a second phase for the general public.
Known as Maya Whatsapp, the strategy already operates in Campeche, and through a preliminary agreement signed between the Secretariats of Education of Yucatan, Campeche and Quintana Roo, it will be put into test in the two remaining states of the Peninsula, at the start of the next school year.
The head of the Education Secretariat of Campeche, Ricardo Miguel Medina Farfán, said that this initiative emerged in 2017 and indicated that the program has information, writing and pronunciation in Maya language.
“The model has already being tested in Campeche, and it takes advantage of technology, by using smart phones and social networks as tools to spread the use of Maya language across the three states of the Peninsula, “he said.
He said that after meeting with his counterparts from Yucatan and Quintana Roo, he anticipated that the program could reach these two states too, in order to increase the teaching of this important pre-Hispanic language.
Medina Farfán stressed that the three states of the Peninsula hope to make the official launch of this new strategy, that seeks to preserve the Maya language, on September this year.
The general director of museums and heritage of the Secretariat of Culture and the Arts (Sedeculta), Ana Eugenia Méndez Peterson (Photo: Especial)
And the efforts to preserve the Mayan language do not cease in the state of Yucatán either. The general director of Museums and Heritage of the Secretariat for the Development of Culture and the Arts (Sedeculta), Ana Eugenia Méndez Peterson, pointed out that the promotion of the Maya culture is a permanent task for the local authorities.
“We are heirs of a great cultural diversity that we all must assume and appropriate, and in the case of the Government of Yucatan there is awareness and will for this promotion of the Mayan culture to be permanent and throughout the year,” he concluded.
The Yucatan Times Newsroom
