Iracema Morais cried as a child because she wanted to go to school.
Her father, who was illiterate, did not let her study until she turned 10, and shortly afterward he took her out of the classroom for good. That dream remained tucked away for 76 years, while Iracema raised her 16 children — six of whom have since died — and devoted her entire life to raising them in São Paulo do Potengi, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil.
When she finally returned to classes through the EJA program, she already knew how to read and write on her own, and she amazed much younger teachers and classmates with her mental math skills. “I feel like a 15-year-old teenager”, she now says, just days before graduating. Her son Adelino Netto says that his mother has become an example for the entire family. And she already has her next goal: enrolling in a culinary arts course, because at 91 she still has no intention of stopping learning.
