There are about 15.7 million indigenous people in Mexico, and 68 languages are spoken by them (CNDH, 2021). According to statistics, 27.3% of the indigenous population over 15 years of age is illiterate, and this percentage increases with age. Only 3.5% of the indigenous population reaches higher education (Solís, 2017). Even though education is a right for all inhabitants in Mexico, this is not guaranteed for indigenous peoples. Currently, great inequality affects them. They are discriminated against and excluded from opportunities that should be for everyone just because they do not speak the most spoken language in the country: Spanish. Instead, they want to preserve their own roots and rich cultures.

So, if they do not have access to education, neither will they have access to science. Speaking a language other than Spanish radically reduces their access to science. Moreover, a significant percentage of the population does not know how to read or write.

Another vulnerable group in this situation is women. According to the National System of Researchers (SNI, 2015), women represent 35.36% of national researchers. Although 53.54% of the national higher education enrollment was composed of women in the 2021-2022 cycle (ANUIES, 2022), not all women study a career related to science. As it is still believed that this area is only for men, in addition to the fact that gender equity in research has not yet been achieved (Colín, 2014, as cited in Cárdenas, 2015).

Access to education must be a right for all people; there should be no social and economic gaps that prevent it. From our context, we must ensure that science can be accessed by everyone, including women, men, children, people with disabilities, and marginalized communities. We all can generate an impact with science or synthetic biology; however, not everyone has the opportunity. Participating in iGEM is to be spokespersons for our communities, to be a source of inspiration for our community, and to reduce the pronounced inequality gap in accessibility to education and science.

How can more people access scientific knowledge?

Participation in science is usually limited to a smaller group of people, mainly older people studying at university. For that reason, one of the activities we developed to eliminate barriers to allow more people to contribute or participate in science was the association with a startup called Estación Meiquer. Together we created activities and designed experiments for children related to increasing awareness about water pollution and preserving the environment. Seeking to encourage them to a sense of responsibility towards the environment while stimulating their curiosity about science.

Water pollution workshops (Tuxpan, Jalisco)

Similarly, to address the problem in more remote and marginalized communities, we held a small workshop in a Spanish-Nahuatl primary school in the community of Tuxpan, located 3 hours from Guadalajara. We used part of the educational content developed with Estación Meiquer related to water pollution. And after imparting it, we received an exciting workshop about the basics of the indigenous language Nahuatl from the school's director.

Adding to the above, the collection of activities made in collaboration with Estación Meiquer was translated into Mixtec and Nahuatl, two indigenous languages of Mexico of great importance due to their number of speakers, thus promoting the inclusion of indigenous groups that do not speak Spanish.

Mixtec

WOMEN IN STEM conferences (Student community, Tec de Monterrey)

A circle of talks was held on our university's campus to promote inclusion in science. We asked 4 inspiring professors from the School of Engineering of Tecnológico de Monterrey to share what it means to be a woman in science. Each of them shared their personal journey, experiences, and their foray into the STEM world and the difficulties presented to them for being women, showing examples of resilience and empowerment to young girls and students.

References

ANUIES. (2022). Anuario Educación Superior – Técnico Superior, Licenciatura y Posgrado 2021-2022. http://www.anuies.mx/informacion-y-servicios/informacion-estadistica-de-educacion-superior/anuario-estadistico-de-educacion-superior

Cárdenas, M. (2015). La Participación de las Mujeres Investigadoras en México. Investigación administrativa, 44(116). http://www.scielo.org.mx/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S2448-76782015000200004&lng=es&tlng=es

CNDH (2021). Pueblos y Comunidades Indígenas.http://informe.cndh.org.mx/menu.aspx?id=40067

Solís, P. (2017). Discriminación estructural y desigualdad social. (1.a ed.). https://www.conapred.org.mx/documentos_cedoc/DiscriminacionEstructuralAx%20.pdf

SNI. (2015). Sistema Nacional de Investigadores (SNI). CONACYT. https://conacyt.mx/sistema-nacional-de-investigadores/