Tuesday, February 21st, was the “International Mother Language Day,” although in Chile it is sometimes referred to as “International Day of Indigenous Languages.” International Mother Language Day is a creation of UNESCO and has been celebrated each year since 2000 and, as its name implies, the purpose is to promote native languages around the globe. [...]
The national chain store Sodimac is definitely not the place that would normally come to mind as a store to find quality, handmade indigenous textiles. But that is precisely what is now available at a Temuco Sodimac after the brand Origen Chileno launched a line of products there which are made by Lafkenche artisans from [...]
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In the past week, you may have noticed a large number of reports discussing indigenous peoples going to the courts. For example: In Quepe, Mapuche communities filed a lawsuit against the construction of a nearby airport in order to get their voices heard in the process. In Temuco, a lawsuit was filed by the National [...]
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The Ministry of Education has been in the news recently for a number of proposed changes to the national curriculum. Most notable has been a recent decision by the National Education Council (CNED) change references to the ‘dictatorship’ to ‘military regime’. That change was widely criticized as an attempt to change history and diminish the [...]
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On Monday, January 23rd, UNICEF and the Chilean Ministry of Social Development released a substantial report that looked at data on Indigenous youth in Chile. The document covered a number of topics, including socioeconomic conditions, education, health, and living conditions. In a field where data tends to be scarce, the report provides a lot of [...]
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Every four years, an election takes place in Chile that gets relatively little media attention: the election of the eight indigenous representatives who will sit on the National Council for the Corporación Nacional del Desarrollo Indígena (CONADI—National Corporation for Indigenous Development). The most recent election took place on Sunday, Jan. 15, with over 30,000 indigenous [...]
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Since early January, at least 2,800 acres of land in the Carahue comuna of the Araucania region have burned in a series of widely reported forest fires. Seven firefighters lost their lives fighting the blazes and a number of families in the area have lost their homes and livelihoods. Last week, Rodrigo Hinzpeter, the Minister of [...]
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SANTIAGO — In the past week, the Chilean Senate voted on two separate measures requesting the president to safeguard consultation with indigenous peoples. In both instances, the Senate was looking at a specific government project that would affect a specific indigenous community, and in both instances the measures passed with a majority vote. Although the [...]
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When you live on a remote island that covers only 60 square miles of land (163 square kilometers,) it matters a lot how many people can live or visit the island. When that island is the ancestral homeland, and current focal point, of an indigenous people, the amount and type of migration to the island [...]
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This week we thought we’d take a short break from all the talk of human rights and focus on an event happening in Santiago that celebrates indigenous culture and includes traditional foods, textiles and jewelry among other things. On Tuesday and Wednesday, December 20-21, in the Plaza de Armas, Santiago is hosting the First Indigenous [...]
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