Living the life of Maria Fernanda, a Chilean student
Audio 03:35
On May 15 and 16, Chileans voted to choose mayors, councilors and a commission to rewrite the Constitution in Santiago, May 12, 2021. (Illustrative image) © AFP / Martin Bernetti
By: Justine Fontaine Follow
9 mins
Continuation of our summer series on students around the world.
Today, we are heading to Chile, where young people have been mobilizing for years for free education and against social inequalities.
In the outskirts of Santiago, our correspondent, Justine Fontaine, met Maria Fernanda, 24, a feminist student who is about to become a midwife.
And like many Chileans, she will start her professional life with heavy debts to repay.
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We are in Isla de Maipo, a small rural town in the great suburbs of Santiago.
This is where 24-year-old Maria Fernanda Ovalle lives with her parents, her little sister, and several cats.
Before the pandemic, she had to do more than 3 hours of transport per day to go to university: "
I usually get up very early, around 5 in the morning, because I have to leave my house around 5:30 in the morning to take the bus. , to get to Santiago on time.
Then I take the metro and finally arrive at the university.
"
His father works in the building industry, he earns the minimum wage, that is to say a little over 400 dollars per month.
Her mother is a cleaning lady, and works part-time, without a contract.
Maria Fernanda is studying to become a midwife. But despite her parents' low income, she did not have good enough grades to study for free. So she had to go into debt to go to university: “
I'm going to have to pay back around 30 million pesos. And even if I had access to this credit, I also have to pay the university every month because the loan is not high enough
”
Thirty million pesos, that is to say 40,000 dollars, or the price of an apartment in a provincial town in Chile. On top of that, Maria Fernanda has to pay over $ 200 every month to college. So since the start of her studies, she has been inventing odd jobs to earn a little money: “
I create my own mini-businesses, in a way. I used to sell fajitas and chocolate cookies when I had face-to-face classes at university. Now I sell reusable menstrual pads ... I always looked for a way to help my parents, and to pay for the transport card.
"
Maria Fernanda is almost finished her studies, but she has already decided: like many young people of her generation, she is not going to repay the credit she obtained to study. Because she believes that education, which was largely privatized under the Pinochet dictatorship, should be free for the majority of students. A point of view defended in the street during
major demonstrations of the Chilean youth
for more than ten years: “
I believe and I hope that my sister will be able to study for free, because she will soon begin her higher studies. And I also hope that if we have to take out a student loan of 5 million pesos, for example, we do not have more than this amount to repay afterwards.
"
She places a lot of hope in the brand
new Constituent Assembly
, elected in May.
Because thanks to years of mobilization of Chileans in the street, the country is currently drafting a new Constitution, to replace the current text, inherited from the Pinochet dictatorship.
In addition to education, Maria Fernanda hopes that the new Constitution will allow progress on women's rights.
Because in parallel with her studies, she participates in feminist mobilizations, and she is committed to sex education for adolescents.
“
Since my first year in college, since studying obstetrics, I have had this goal in mind.
I recently submitted a project to my university to promote feminist sex education, and I offered to carry out interventions, conferences on sex education.
"
While waiting for this project to materialize, she created an account on social networks to inform the women of her municipality about their rights, about sexual health or even about gender.
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