Chile’s student leaders to receive international human rights award

Student movement leaders Camila Vallejo and Noam Titelman
will accept an award from the Institute for Policy Studies on
behalf of the movement Wednesday.

Leaders from Chile’s student movement are set to receive the 2012 International Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award, presented by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), in Washington D.C. Wednesday.

Camila Vallejo and Noam Titelman, representatives of the country’s two most influential student federations, will accept the award on behalf of the broader movement.

“We have been inspired not just by the action of the Chilean students, but by their ideas – ideas toward true democracy and changing the system so that it works for the many, not just the few,” IPS Director John Cavanagh told The Santiago Times. “Chilean struggles have been in our hearts for a long time.”

The Chilean student movement has been active consistently since mid-2011, as students, parents and teachers have fought for education reform in Chile. Student marches continue to draw thousands of protesters, though they are also frequently marred by violence.

“During 2011 we saw almost all schools and universities paralyzed for almost six months, over one million people marching in the streets and students willingly losing their academic year,” Titelman told Democracy Now. “All of this is because something is obviously not working with this extremely privatized educational system.”

Vallejo, vice president of the Student Federation of Unversidad de Chile (FECH), and Titelman, president of the Santiago Catholic University Student Federation, traveled to the United States on Monday to meet with student groups at New York University and City University of New York.

As part of a speaking tour facilitated by IPS, the two student leaders will also visit American University in Washington D.C. and Harvard University in Boston where they will discuss education reform in Chile, students organizing in Chile and how these relate to students organizing in the United States.

Cavanagh said IPS hopes this global recognition and speaking tour will “spur further conversation and collaboration in the global student movement.”

- The Santiago Times