Carmen Lyra. Nation´s Distinguished Citizen

Abstract

María Isabel Carvajal Castro, Carmen Lyra, was born in San José, Costa Rica, January 7, 1888. Graduated as a school teacher in el Colegio Superior de Señoritas in 1904.  Lyra established, with some friends, the Centro de Estudios Sociales Gerrminal in 1912.  She became part of the revolutionary movement that overthrew the Tinoco´s dictatorship in 1919.  She obtained a scholarship from the Government of Costa Rica to study the montessori method in France.  The Ministry of Education, appointed Lyra as a teacher in the Escuela Normal de Costa Rica in 1921. Many articles and books were written by Lyra.  As a result,  she is considered the founder of the narrative technique in Costa Rica.  The Escuela Maternal was also found by Lyra, as the first montessori school in Costa Rica. She became a member and a leader  of the Communist Party in the 30´s.  Constitutional amendments of Social Guarantees, the Labor Act, and the establishment of the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social (health care institution) were proposed by Lyra and collegues to be part of the legal system in 1940 in Costa Rica. Conservative groups opposed these legal transformations and expelled Carmen Lyra out of the country in 1948.  She died in Mexico City on May 14, 1949.  She was declared Nation´s Distinguished Citizen on April 26, 2016, sixty seven years after her death.