I have seen first hand some of the lasting evidence of the political, economic and social turmoil and destruction of democracy.  I spent a total of 5 weeks in Chile in 2008-09 teaching courses in adult education to a group of Indigeneous Mapuche people in Temuco, Chile. 

Temuco is not in a rich part of Chile and many disenfranchised Mapuche people live there.  I also had an opportunity to visit some of the surrounding communities – Puerto Saavedra, Currarehue, Chol Chol, Lumaco and Alto Bio Bio. The people in these communities are very friendly but many of them are illiterate and living in poverty.  The courses in the “Train-the-trainer” program which I was teaching was to assist them to acquire teaching skills that would empower them to become teachers in their own communities. 

One of the courses I taught was a Foundations course where we discussed some of the history of Chile so that the teachers could understand their disenfranchisement was not because of something they did or didn’t do but to political forces that did not have their best interests at heart.

So take  A moment of silence to remember…