Later, Father Salcedo, with the support of a Catholic organization called Acción Cultural Popular – ACPO – and the rural community, developed a series of courses on math, writing, agricultural instruction, health and sanitation, among other subjects that aimed to diminish illiteracy and improve farmers' life quality.
[7] Even though it was not a Catholic radio, it was mainly funded by the Church and it was blessed by Pope Paul VI during his papal visit to Colombia in 1968.
Radio Sutatenza grew to the point where it aired 19 hours of educational programs per day, covering 687 towns and four main Colombian cities at the time.
[4] It distributed 6,453,937 handbooks, answered 1,229,552 letters from students, it created a weekly newspaper called El Campesino, and educated about 8,000,000 farmers around the country.
It also became a model for other rural education initiatives in Latin America, such as Fundación Radio Escuela para el Desarrollo Rural (FREDER) in Osorno, Chile; Instituto de Cultura Popular (INCUPO) in Reconquista, Argentina; Escuelas Radiofónicas Populares de Ecuador (ERPE); Radio Onda Azul in Puno, Perú; Asociación Cultural Loyola (ACLO) in Sucre, Bolivia; Radio Occidente in Tovar, Venezuela, and Escuelas Radiofónicas de Nicaragua.