“Why I Started Throwing Molotovs at Police.” PHOTO ESSAY
“I don’t want to throw Molotovs” says Sophia to us on Facebook “Me and thousands of others want our kids to have basic school education. Education that WE couldn’t get and cannot get.”
Sophia is from Chile — a country where only 45% of kids can get basic school education for free — the rest 55 per cent have to pay huge sums of money to government.
“I want my child to have a basic understanding of the world.” — Sophia continues — “I want him to know why sun rises in the morning and sets down in the evening. I want him to know the history of our country and of the world. I want my child to learn in English to be able to communicate with the modern world.”
Later in the conversation we found out that Sophia was speaking to us with the help of a friend. He or she was translating what Sophia was saying from Spanish to English because Sophia’s English was poor.
This is not our first report about Chile. In April this year, we published our photo report that documented student protests in Chile between 2011 and 2013. We were happy for Chileans on that day. We were glad to hear the announcement by the Chilean government that promised serious education reforms in the country. They would change lives of people like Sophia. The reforms would allow people like Sophia to finally get what they deserve — education.
But the struggle goes on…
And one last photo…
“This picture describes us the best. The left photo is of us now — but we really want to drop our masks and become the couple on the right.”
Acknowledgements.
I would like to thank young Chilean Sophia for her story about education in Chile today. I would also like to thank photographer Bee for his great pictures.
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