Care is at the center of the debate about longevity and research on disability. It is evermore at the top of governments’ political agendas around the globe as they see it as a necessary step for health and wellbeing as well as prosperity and growth.
The need for care is growing fast around the world. “Everyone of the nearly 8 million people that live on the planet was cared for and at some point in our lives will care for others”, said Claudia Miranda, director of the Millenium Institute for Care Research (MICARE) at the start of the Conference “Care: perspectives from research and experience”.
The event gathered more than a hundred experts from academia, government, and civil society on the 24th and 25th of October at Universidad Andrés Bello to address the challenges of care in different contexts, including education, family, health, and public policy, with a focus on various groups, including older people, people with intellectual disabilities, children, and adolescents.
“Care is a concern worldwide. The growing need for care drives evermore the debates in the political agendas, as governments recognize that to guarantee the wellbeing of carers and those in need of care, is vital for the prosperity of our societies”, added Miranda.
Community based perspective
Experts gathered at the conference highlighted the urgent need for developing a care system that puts human rights at the center and recognizes carers as subjects of rights rather than objects in need of protection.
“It is important to move towards a community-based care system, where care is not locked up in each household, but it creates the opportunities for all people to be able to participate in the community and to have social and political participation”, said Marcela Tenorio, deputy director of MICARE. The expert added that a well integrated public policy needs to “provide room to implement reasonable adjustments to guarantee the right to care”.
Javiera Toro, Minister of Social Development and Family, joined the conference underlining MICARE’s role in providing evidence for the debate on care. The authority explained the objectives of the bill currently in parliament to recognize the legal right to care and to create a national support and care system. “The government is prioritizing the establishment of a National Support and Care System that recognizes the right to care in its three dimensions, and that can only be achieved by articulating the State, civil society, private sector, and academia, so we greatly value this work”.
