At 40 years old, Rafael Tula still remembers the afternoon in 2021 when he sat back down at a school desk. More than a decade and a half had passed since he earned his high school diploma in 2005, and life, with its bad decisions and fractures, had led him to the pavilions of the La Esperanza Penitentiary Complex, the legendary prison of Mariona.
In front of him there was no guard or search order, but rather a blackboard and the subject of Statistics. In that exact moment, as he looked at his hands marked by confinement, a pang of uncertainty froze his chest: "Am I capable? Will I be able to do it again?"
Infobae gained exclusive access to a direct interview with him, and the young man described to this outlet that his routine is nothing like that of an ordinary student on the outside.
In the six classrooms and two computer centers built in the Mariona prison, there are no web search engines, no artificial intelligences that summarize texts in seconds, and no smartphones.
Salvadoran penitentiary law flatly prohibits internet access. For Tula and his classmates, studying Business Administration meant a forced but fruitful return to the old ways: entire hours devouring printed volumes in the library, taking notes by hand with pencil and paper, and wearing out keyboards in front of monitors connected only to a local intranet.
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Rafael Tula is an inmate at the La Esperanza Penitentiary Center, popularly known as Mariona in El Salvador, and he is also a graduate of the business administration degree program he completed inside the prison. (Infobae Centroamérica/Emerson Del Cid)
At 40 years old, Rafael Tula still remembers the afternoon in 2021 when he sat back down at a school desk. More than a decade and a half had passed since he earned his high school diploma in 2005, and life, with its bad decisions and fractures, had led him to the wards of the La Esperanza Penitentiary Complex, the legendary Mariona prison. In front of him there was no guard or search order, but rather a blackboard and a Statistics class. At that exact moment, as he looked at his hands marked by confinement, a pang of uncertainty froze his chest: "Am I capable? Will I be able to do it again?"
Infobae gained exclusive access to a direct interview with him, and the young man described to this outlet that his routine is nothing like that of an ordinary student on the outside. In the six classrooms and two computer centers built inside the Mariona prison, there are no web search engines, no artificial intelligences that summarize texts in seconds, and no smartphones. Salvadoran penitentiary law flatly prohibits internet access. For Tula and his classmates, studying Business Administration meant a forced but fruitful return to the old ways: entire hours devouring printed volumes in the library, taking notes by hand with pencil and paper, and wearing out keyboards in front of monitors connected only to a local intranet.
When the Christian University of the Assemblies of God (UCAD) established its campus under the auspices of the Zero Leisure Plan and international cooperation, Rafael decided to take the risk. It was not an easy path. He had to dust off forgotten mathematical formulas, discipline his sleep, and overcome the stigma that in a cell time only serves to rust away. Cycle after cycle, over five uninterrupted years and 48 courses taken from Monday to Saturday, the initial fear transformed into rigorous discipline. Recalling that abyss between his past and this university present, Rafael Tula recounted the inner battle he fought against his own doubts:
That capacity not only revived, but shattered records. Rafael closed his academic coursework with a Merit Units Coefficient (CUM) of 9.5, placing himself at the top of the prison's grades. Those who come in to teach confirm that the atmosphere inside these prison classrooms overflows with an unusual intensity.
To sustain that performance, Rafael had an invisible engine waiting behind the bars: his family. Although the program has subsidies from organizations such as the UNODC and the Embassy of Qatar, relatives assume a symbolic monthly fee, in addition to paying for notebooks, uniforms, and photocopies. In return, the university students must give back that support to the prison community. Through his social hours, Tula became a nighttime literacy teacher, teaching inmates who are part of construction crews how to read, write, and calculate quantities of work.
In the La Esperanza Penitentiary Center, popularly known as Mariona in El Salvador, there is a higher education project run by a university that offers inmates, or prisoners convicted of common crimes, the opportunity to pursue a university degree while serving their sentences. (Infobae Centroamérica/Emerson Del Cid)
Rafael's horizon now points to May 2027, when he will don cap and gown alongside about 40 classmates to formally graduate with a degree in Business Administration, with a pre-specialization in logistics and customs. He has two and a half years left on his sentence, although he is confident that the benefits for work and study will speed up his release. In the meantime, he already has a business plan structured in folders and exact figures: a logistics distributor to organize and market the products of small Salvadoran artisans and micro-entrepreneurs.
On the verge of receiving the diploma he promised his parents when he was just a child, Tula summed up the redemption he found among the books of Mariona:
"Knowing that when you're little, people always tell you: 'Hey, one day you're going to be a professional, you're going to be a doctor'... And knowing that in the context we're in, in the situation one is in, many people think: 'No, he's already stalled and that's where it ended.' And knowing that we had an opportunity, and I imagine the family is going to feel proud, knowing that I did achieve the goal of being able to crown a profession."