On August 12 the indigenous movement known as the Zapatistas launched a community ran, non-hierachical school that is expected to enroll over 1,500 students. La escuelita de libertad, or the little school of liberty, will focus on schooling as well as involving students in the daily life of the Zapatistas community. Students will live with a family in a rebel zapatista community and cut wood, work in the cornfields, cook and eat with their host families.

According to Subcomandante Marcos, the official spokesman for the movement, the school will be an open place for learning. Marcos stated that liberty is “to govern and govern ourselves according to our ways, in our geography and in this calendar.” The Zapatistas are a movement of indigenous rebels throughout southern Mexico who first appeared in 1994, capturing six towns in Chiapas.