Universidad Andrés Bello Launches New Observatory for Inclusion with Government Announcement about 2024 Census

On Tuesday, May 30th, Universidad Andrés Bello launched its new Observatory for Inclusion, to continue to promote a culture that values diversity and fosters inclusion. The new unit will seek to foster the labor inclusion of people with disabilities through a specialized academic program, to improve their quality of life and promote a culture of inclusion at all levels. It will also contribute to the development of inclusive public policies.

The event was attended by UNAB President Julio Castro, and the director of the National Disability Service (Senadis), Daniel Concha, among other academic authorities, representatives of civil society, and businesses working on inclusion issues.

As part of this event, the national director of Senadis announced the addition of a new item in the National Census, to be conducted in 2024, referring to the disabled population. “A set of disability-related questions are being added to the pilots of next year’s survey, which we hope will successfully provide a real snapshot of Chileans in this situation,” he said. In addition, he shared government initiatives aimed at modifying entry into the public sector, which currently requires high school completion, to also recognize graduation from special schools.

The Observatory

“This is a long-held desire we had as a university and today it is finally seeing the light. We are an institution that promotes inclusion as part of our foundational mission. We were pioneers in launching a program for the labor insertion of people with special needs 17 years ago, and we also have institutional policies and instances that aim to foster the integration of people with disabilities. Today we take a new and big step, creating a unit that contributes with a multidisciplinary approach to promote inclusion, in addition to generating debate on the main issues that are the object of public policies that need to be inclusive,” said UNAB President, Professor Julio Castro.

The national director of Senadis welcomed the creation of the Observatory for Inclusion, indicating that “it is a very important event, especially to progress in monitoring the compliance of disability laws, and especially the labor inclusion law”.

This new unit presented by UNAB results from a partnership between the School of Education and Social Sciences and the UNAB Institute of Public Policy (IPP) and will be directed by Alejandra Ríos, a psychopedagogist, and master in Educational and Psychological Intervention from the University of Navarra, who has a long career dedicated to inclusion topics and socio-labor training of people with disabilities. She was the director of the UNAB Diploma in Labor Skills program at the Viña del Mar campus for ten years and is currently the director of the Diploma in Leadership, Diversity, and Inclusion in Companies.

The Dean of the School of Education and Social Sciences, Dr. María Gabriela Huidobro, acknowledged that “we are immensely excited about this project, born from a partnership between our School and the UNAB Institute of Public Policy, it represents expanding opportunities to contribute to the challenges for inclusion. We have experience in this field, and we are passionate about it. We are convinced that, with these types of initiatives, we can contribute to the real construction of a fairer, more diverse, and more inclusive society”.

The director of the UNAB Public Policy Institute, Raúl Figueroa, emphasized that “the Observatory allows us to generate valuable information for a better design of public policies and their evaluation. We need to advance evidence-based policies that aim to reduce the barriers that affect people with disabilities and, in this way, contribute to improving their quality of life and facilitating access to better opportunities. UNAB has a long commitment to promoting inclusion, which will be strengthened with this initiative that puts the academic rigor, the analysis of information, and the proposal of solutions to the service of public policies to highlight the need for a more inclusive society”.

Inclusion Law and Survey

Seeking to contribute to the debate and do a deep dive into the challenges of inclusion in Chile, especially in the world of work, during the event a round table was held called «5 years after the Labor Inclusion Law: Where are we and what are the pending challenges?», which had the participation of Romina Bajbuj, director of the Department of Participation and Intersectionality of SENADIS; Luciano Cruz Coke, Senator for the Metropolitan Region; and Macarena Capurro, deputy manager of People Design of Ab InBev, who also participated on behalf of the SOFOFA Inclusive Companies Network.

The panel referenced the results of the first survey on “Citizen perceptions towards people with disabilities” carried out by the UNAB Public Policy Institute, which shows that 60% of respondents believe that, with the same skills, aptitudes, or studies, a person with physical disabilities or learning or cognitive difficulties, has fewer opportunities than the rest to get a job. 87% of those who answered also believe that prejudices still exist regarding people with disabilities.

It became clear that, five years after this Law was passed there are still gaps that must be addressed.

In this regard, Senator Cruz Coke held that, at the private level, “there is still a huge lack of educational institutions that lack inclusive teams, and for that reason, I celebrate UNAB’s initiative”. At the same time, he pointed out that in the parliamentary arena, the objective of improving this reality is transversal. In this regard, he announced that “along with Senator Fabiola Campillay, we are promoting a disability commission in the Senate, so that it can meet to influence different projects where this perspective is relevant”.

For her part, Romina Bajbuj commented that “from my experience, until before the Law, inclusion processes were seen as a favor, which has certainly changed because the cultural change has already been introduced, which is more important than the regulations or the assigned quotas”. In this sense, she highlighted that “every day, we are training more organizations interested in knowing the regulatory framework on disability, which confirms the new awareness that exists about the issue”.

Regarding the difficulties that still exist, Macarena Capurro commented that “if we look at ourselves, almost all of us who are here had a training that was not inclusive, and therefore in our organizations, we continue to learn over time, on a path that does not end”. Regarding the Observatory launched by UNAB, she pointed out that, like the Law, it is a great advancement “because we still lack data that help us achieve real inclusion of people with disabilities”.