Cultural Profile Resource: Chile A resource for aged care professionals Birgit Heaney Dip. 19/06/2016 A resource for aged care professionals Table of Contents Introduction ....................................................................................................................................................................... 3 Location and Demographic ............................................................................................................................................... 4 Facts on Chile ................................................................................................................................................................... 5 Everyday Life ................................................................................................................................................................... 7 Family ............................................................................................................................................................................... 8 Personal Hygiene .............................................................................................................................................................. 9 Leisure and Recreation ................................................................................................................................................... 10 Religion ........................................................................................................................................................................... 11 Food and Diet ................................................................................................................................................................. 12 Health .............................................................................................................................................................................. 13 Death and Dying ............................................................................................................................................................. 13 Language ......................................................................................................................................................................... 14 Cue Cards ........................................................................................................................................................................ 14 Disclaimer ....................................................................................................................................................................... 15 References ....................................................................................................................................................................... 15 2 A resource for aged care professionals Chile Culture Profile Introduction This profile of the Chile cultural community is just one of the many projects undertaken by Quality Aging. This project aims to provide relevant information for community groups and residential aged care providers to implement “best practice” strategies of care for the older individuals from diverse backgrounds. This project is about ensuring the needs of older persons from a Chile cultural background are met. Population trends within Australia are increasingly characterized by a diversity of people, languages and culture. Together with this trend is an aging population, also with a rich diversity of languages and cultures. Not surprisingly then, that residential aged care providers are faced with growing demands for culturally responsive facilities and care. This profile aims to create a tool to provide aged care providers with An awareness of the cultural and linguistically diverse needs of older persons from a Chile background. It also strives to enable the professional capability and progress of staff in the provision of culturally inclusive care; and The organisation’s compliance with the Residential Care Standards and National Care Standards as they pertain to the issue of cultural and linguistic needs. The profile provides beneficial information about a variety of subjects and resources. This is a guide only and is not intended to replace one stereotype of this culture with another; it is only intended to provide some insight into the culture. Nor does it reduce the importance of you establishing the individual cultural needs of each person as part of your care planning process. In an effort to continue to provide you with updated information of this profile and improve its contents, we encourage readers to provide feedback by contacting Quality Aging at [email protected] 3 A resource for aged care professionals Location and Demographic Chile has a population of 15,017,800 inhabitants (from a June 1999 estimate) with an annual growth rate of 1.8 percent. The national population density is 46.5 persons per square mile. Almost six million people live in the metropolitan region of Santiago, while the northern and southern regions are sparsely populated. Most Chileans (84 percent) reside in urban areas, while the rest live in an increasingly urbanized rural environment. As of 1997, life expectancy at birth was seventy-two years for males and seventy-eight years for females, while the infant mortality rate was ten per thousand live births. The majority of Chileans (65 percent) are of mixed European-indigenous descent ("mestizos," though this term is not in use in Chile). Some 25 percent of Chileans are of European ancestry (mainly from Spanish, German, Italian, British, Croatian, and French origins, or combinations thereof). Chile also has a large Palestinian community (some 300,000 persons, the largest outside Palestine). The indigenous population represents some 7 percent of the population. There are about 500,000 Mapuche Indians in Chile, constituting the country's largest Native American population. Since the late 1980s, the country's economic prosperity and sociopolitical stability have attracted an increasing number of immigrants from Korea and from other Latin American countries (largely from Peru, Argentina, and Cuba). Chile is situated in the southern periphery, in the southernmost coordinates of Earth. Depending on the point of view, this long distance seems to be compensated by the overflowing nature it unfolds. Along its geographical features, Chile presents a diversity of sceneries that includes deserts, beaches, cities, mountains, valleys, rivers, lakes, volcanoes, hot springs and glaciers. The Republic of Chile lies in the West of South America and its territory spreads from 17º 30' to 90º, South latitude. It occupies a total continental and insular surface of 756,626 km2 and a length of 4,200 km., approximately, without considering the Antarctic area. Its average width is 177 kilometers, with a continental minimum of 90 km., located between the Casa de Piedra Pass and Punta Amolanas, to the North of the mouth of the Choapa River, in the Coquimbo Region. It also includes Easter Island or Rapa Nui and the islands of San Félix, San Ambrosio, Salas and Gómez, as well as the Juan Fernández Archipelago, thus occupying 200 miles of territorial waters. It borders on Peru, Bolivia and Argentina. The Pacific Ocean sets its natural boundary to the West. It is divided into 13 political regions: Tarapacá, Antofagasta, Atacama, Coquimbo, Valparaíso, Metropolitana de Santiago, Libertador General Bernardo O’Higgins, Maule, Bío Bío, Araucanía, Los Lagos, Aysén del General Carlos Ibáñez Del Campo, Magallanes and Chilean Antarctica. These regions include 51 provinces and 346 communities dwelled by over 15,589,147 inhabitants 4 A resource for aged care professionals Facts on Chile 1. World’s Biggest Swimming Pool is in Chile? In Algarrobo city in the Pacific coast, we find the most impressive artificial paradise that was named by the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s largest swimming pool with a length of 1,000 yards, an area of 20 acres and a maximum depth of 115- feet. It holds 66 million gallons of crystal clear seawater. The pool was opened in December 2006 and it took five years of construction work with a cost of nearly 1 billion dollars and an annual maintenance cost of about 2 million. 2. In Chile, You Can Find the Driest Place on Earth, The Atacama Desert At 7,500 feet, Chile’s Atacama Desert is the driest place on Earth with a landscape of surreal beauty. Some parts of the region have never received a drop of rain and the Desert is probably also the oldest desert on earth. The desert runs through a 1,000 kilometer long strip of land between the Andes Mountains and the Pacific Ocean, spreading out over an area of 363,000 square kilometers. 3. Chile is a World Class Wine Destination, and the Ninth Largest Producer of Wine Chile is the 5th largest exporter of wine and the 9th largest producer. And not just any wine, but some of the best and finest selection of wines have been produced in Chile since the first wine grapes were planted in the country in 1554, brought by Spanish Conquistadores. Chile has more than 1,200 kilometers of viticulture valleys in 14 different areas, which produce more than 10 million hectoliters of wine per year. 4. Easter Island The “moai” island off the coast of Chile, was annexed by the country in 1888 and renamed Easter Island in the late 1700’s. During the 1900s it was a sheep farm and was managed by the Chilean Navy. On this particular Island, more than 7 km of subterranean lava