The UC School of Education hosted the Palestinian Ambassador for a discussion on solidarity, women, and education.
October 2, 2025
Last Thursday, September 25, the Faculty of Education was the scene of a significant meeting and reflection within the framework of the Series of Talks "Education, Democracy and Gender", organized by the Gender Subdirectorate.
The activity, dedicated to thinking about solidarity as a political and pedagogical concept, included the participation of the ambassador of the State of Palestine in Chile, Vera Baboun, who was received by the vice-dean of the Faculty of Education, Daniela VélizThe ambassador was accompanied by a delegation of nine diplomats from different countries. The academics also participated. Sandra Vera, from Alberto Hurtado University and Maria Soledad del Villar, a theologian who contributed critical perspectives from feminism and feminist theology, enriching the tripartite and interdisciplinary nature of the conversation.
A space for listening and dialogue
During the day, reflections on solidarity were shared from different experiences and backgrounds. Ambassador Baboun highlighted the need for the Latin American university community to strengthen ties with Palestine and with the peoples fighting for justice, underscoring the importance of education as an engine of resistance and democracy building. In her presentation, she emphasized that "Solidarity is not an empty gesture: it is an action that preserves the existence of Palestine and defends rights in all their breadth: democratic participation, access to education, gender justice, and human dignity..
She also highlighted the specific impact of violence on Palestinian women, describing the situation in Gaza as “a war against women”, with thousands of lives taken, health services destroyed, and an increase in the vulnerability of women and girls.
These reflections demonstrated how international solidarity must be a transformative practice that confronts impunity and keeps the path to freedom alive.
Academic and critical contributions
Researcher Sandra Vera presented the Dissonance Ring research project, highlighting how the feminist movement has strained university structures and influenced the institutionalization of gender policies. She emphasized that feminism has contributed to deepening the concept of democracy, politicizing emotions and nurturing democratic conversation for society as a whole, always with an active commitment to gender justice.
For her part, researcher María Soledad del Villar shared a critical reflection on the Catholic Church's experiences in defending human rights during the dictatorship and the abuses within the institution. She argued that recognizing the voice of victims as a theological space implies transforming structures of silence into critical practices of denunciation and active listening, capable of achieving epistemic justice.
In her speech, she argued that feminist solidarity in ecclesial contexts entails building a community among vulnerable bodies, understanding that vulnerability is not the opposite of life, but rather its most radical expression: the capacity to sustain existence even in the midst of death. She also called for an end to hate speech and an appeal to humanist alternatives that restore our responsibility for caring for others. In her words, “If I evade my responsibility, I cause harm.”Therefore, Christian and feminist solidarity must extend beyond specific contexts, as a universal commitment to confronting violence and exclusion.
Institutional commitment
The Gender Sub-directorate of the Faculty of Education praised the high turnout and tripartite nature of the discussion, reaffirming the university's commitment to building inclusive and critical spaces for dialogue, with a women's and feminist perspective, to strengthen more stable and just democracies.
This meeting not only allowed for a deeper understanding of the relationship between education, gender, and democracy, but also highlighted the urgency of articulating international solidarity from the university in the face of contexts of violence, exclusion, and resistance.
