A LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY

I share this article because most people don't know how to ask for help and most of us don't know how to help them.
It is for everybody who wants to know more about the history and the DRAMA of the people MAPUCHE

JUST FOR NOT FORGET

SOURCE : REDCROSS.INTREDCROSS.INT

IN response to health needs in remote and destitute communities of the Mapuche indigenous people, the Chilean Red Cross set up a dental and ophthalmological programme to help their communities. The only one of its kind in the region, the programme has reached 12,000 beneficiaries in the past seven years and is now set to expand. Red Cross Red Crescent recently accompanied one of the Red Cross teams on its rounds.

“One of the first obstacles we encountered was the isolation of these communities, which are scattered across a remote mountain area,” says Luis Arias Melivilu, the Chilean Red Cross volunteer who acts as project coordinator. “The dirt roads, which are few and far between, are in very poor condition. When it rains, they become impassable.”

To overcome this remoteness, the Red Cross set up a mobile dental clinic that travels from one community to another. On the day of the visit, the clinic was headed for Ignacio Petriqueo, a small community of 17 families in Perquenco municipality, 52 kilometres from the region’s capital, Temuco.

Staffed by a dental surgeon, an ophthalmologist, an assistant and a driver, the mobile clinic consists of a fully equipped ambulance. It is run by the Red Cross Committee of Region IX, in southern Chile, which encompasses 29 branches and some 600 volunteers. Supplies and travel costs are paid for by the National Health Fund and the vehicle itself was donated by the Spanish Red Cross.

Of the 1,720 people who have received dental care this year, 400 have completed their treatment. The clinic also provides basic ophthalmological care.

“It’s a big help having the Red Cross come here,” says Joel Ankatel Caneo, the community leader. “Getting to town, which is 12 kilometres away, is complicated. There is only one bus and it’s expensive. So we usually walk, and that takes all day.” When asked how the community manages to survive, Caneo replies: “In the spring and summer, we grow wheat, potatoes, oats and lupin. That keeps us going for the entire year. In good weather, we store up what we need for the winter months.”

Yary Antimal Salazar, a Mapuche social worker who leads community development efforts in Perquenco, says: “The municipality has 6,570 inhabitants, 80 per cent of whom live below the poverty line. In the 20 Mapuche communities, one in every two people are destitute.”

Lack of health care is a major problem. “There is only one doctor and one basic medical centre for all these people,” says Salazar.

According to Melivilu, things are getting worse every day. “Medical care is urgently needed, especially for mothers and infants, whose situation has become critical.”

The project currently reaches 10 per cent of the Mapuche people living in Region IX. In the 1992 census, Chile’s total Mapuche population was estimated at 1,200,000, over half of whom inhabited the south of the country and some 500,000 in the two largest cities, Valparaíso and Santiago. Yet the 2002 census reported only 600,000 Mapuche in the country. This unexplained drop in the overall figure was denounced by several organizations as ‘statistical genocide’ resulting from the ambiguous formulation of the census questions.

The ICRC regional delegation for Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay is currently working with the Chilean Red Cross to expand community health-care and first-aid programmes in the area.

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