Chile is experiencing a unique constituent process in its history; for the first time, a Fundamental Charter will be written with a diversity of conventions, with gender parity, with a descriptive representation that has achieved a refreshing renewal of political actors, mostly independent people from social and territorial movements.
I took my participation in this process as a must. At the beginning of 2020, I was sworn in as a lawyer before the Full Court of the Supreme Court, thus becoming the first deaf woman to be sworn in as such, receiving my Diploma from the hands of the president of the Supreme Court, Mr. Guillermo Silva. This could only be possible due to the grant awarded by the Deaf Legal Advocacy Worldwide Foundation based in Washington D.C, an organization led by Harvard University graduate Deaf lawyer Michael Steven Stein. This entity grants financing to deaf people in the world who want to become lawyers for the defense of the Human Rights of deaf people.
This clear commitment and responsibility led me to present my candidacy as an independent, together with the Independent Movement of the North, with a view to two relevant factors: firstly, the need to install in the debate, and the recognition of priority groups in the drafting of the New Constitution; namely, people with disabilities and deaf people. On the other hand, the recognition of the Chilean Sign Language as the official language of deaf people and of their linguistic and cultural identity; in a way, comparable to the potential recognition that the languages of the native peoples in our country will obtain.
We have already worked and advanced in this regard. Since 2018, together with other people and organizations of the national Deaf Community, we have presented a project to modify Law 20422 in the Congress, so that the Chilean sign language is recognized, establishing the duty of the State to ensure its access to public and private services and stipulating their priority by being taught by deaf people and guaranteeing the right to a bilingual education of deaf boys and girls. This sustained work of almost four years was crowned by the promulgation and publication of Law 21.303 in January of this year.
The word "politics" in our country, due to the loss of legitimacy of those who exercise it, has provoked rejection in the citizen movements. However, from the work done within our own social organizations, a new conception of what political participation should mean has been born. Personally, when I was campaigning, I had a unique possibility of introducing the rights of deaf people in Chile into the debate and the lack of accessibility in all areas of development. At the same time, it became a tremendous challenge when interacting with the people of my territory in district 3, in the midst of a pandemic. All in all, our list obtained 20.27% of the total votes, and although I did not get to reach one of the seats, one of our colleagues did: the scientist Cristina Dorador with whom I will continue to collaborate permanently and continuously; as well as in the work of the table of the "Colectivo DDHH Sordes" and the " Nellie Zabel Foundation", both of them, organizations of women of the Deaf Community that I currently lead to ensure that the Human Rights of Deaf people in Chile are also incorporated into this New Constitution.
Do you want to contact me to learn more about our work? This is my email vianney.sierralta@gmail.com vianney.sierralta@gmail.com .
