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The Mapuche people is the main native people in Chile. For the past ten years, the Mapuche have launched a strong movement of claiming their culture. A foundation started to teach Mapuche culture and language classes to primary school students in Recoleta, in the north of Santiago: a first out of the Mapuche region.
It is 8 o'clock in the morning in this school of the municipality of Recoleta located a few metro stations from the center of Santiago. The first grade children are in a circle in the middle of the classroom, warming their feet and hands, counting up to five in the Mapuche language.
Their teacher this morning, Camila Huenchumil, in her thirties, comes once a week, with her traditional drum, to sing and play the children, in Mapudungun, the language of the Mapuche people: " In Chile, the The law obliges municipalities with more than 20 % indigenous pupils to set up certain courses in the language of their people. The commune of Recoleta has few pupils of Mapuche origin, yet its communist mayor decided to set up these courses in all the municipal schools. A first in Chile, outside the region of origin of the Mapuche , in the south of the country. "
Karen Paichil is the initiator and director of this project: " The goal is for children to learn about culture and language, but we are not looking to train bilingual children. Because the reality of these children is not that one. They will have little opportunity to communicate in this language and to practice it. What we are looking for is that they learn respect and basic knowledge about other cultures. "
Cultural openness
Learning to know another culture should enable children to go beyond the prejudices about Mapuche that are still quite common in Chilean society. But it also allows children to better accept each other in a community where many students are children of Peruvian, Venezuelan , and sometimes Haitian immigrants.
Camila Huenchumil finds it important that the project take place in a school like this: " It is sometimes said that these schools are " intercultural " , in the sense that many children come from different countries, especially from America. Latin. So there are not only Chilean children. And then among those who are Chilean, some are mapuche, sometimes even without really knowing it. These are very different situations .
A hard-hit people
If some children do not know that they are of Mapuche origin, it is because this people has long been harshly discriminated against and repressed in Chile, to the point that some Mapuches, especially those pushed to the exodus towards the big cities, have sometimes in the past preferred to hide their identity.
►Also read: Fires: Chilean police allegedly falsified evidence against Mapuche
Today, almost half of the Mapuche live in the Santiago region and not in southern Chile, and it is difficult in this context for them to keep their traditions and their language, the Mapudungun. Lyana is one of the students who just attended class this morning: " My dad is Mapuche. A long time ago, he knew how to speak Mapudungun, but now he has forgotten. "
A desire to extend the project
560 children currently benefit from these courses in the public schools of the municipality of Recoleta. For the moment, these are those only in the first year of primary school, equivalent to CP. The idea is to gradually extend this teaching to other levels.
►To read too: The Mapuches fight for their rights a few weeks from the presidential election
A project supported by Margaret, whose son is currently in second grade at Recoleta. She is of Mapuche origin herself: " I would have thought it was great that he had, during the whole duration of the primary school, Mapuche language classes, the language of our ancestors, because it is lost today. It would have been very rewarding for the children, to help recover our culture . "