JULY 26, 2018

President Piñera signs bill to create the Family and Social Development Ministry

This initiative seeks to focus social development policies on families. The family "is the essential and irreplaceable nucleus of a healthy and vigorous society,” and “the best antidote for many ills, such as loneliness, abandonment, drug addiction, alcoholism and school truancy," the president emphasized.

President Sebastián Piñera signed a bill on Thursday to create the Family and Social Development Ministry, with the aim of refocusing social policies around families as the backbone that provide support for people.

The family "is the essential and irreplaceable nucleus of a healthy and vigorous society. Of course, there are many types of families and each of them deserves respect and dignity. The State must support, assist, promote and facilitate the development of all kinds of families," said the President, who was accompanied by the Social Development Minister, Alfredo Moreno.

"There are many ways of defining family, but there is one thing that makes them unique and irreplaceable. The family is the place where our children are born, raised and educated. It’s the place where we learn the values and principles that will guide us and help us to develop into adulthood. It’s where we are taught the most basic and essential lessons and given tools to progress throughout the many stages of our lives," stressed the President.

One of the main objectives of the Family and Social Development Ministry will be to support and strengthen families, creating favorable conditions to ensure the best possible quality of life for their members during the different stages of their lives.

Through this initiative, the Government seeks to ensure that social development actions are no longer conceived from an individual perspective, but focus instead on families, acknowledging that the people the ministry attends operate within the context of a family.

The President signed the bill at a breakfast event at the La Moneda Palace attended by different government officials, families and members of Congress from across the political spectrum.

"A strong and healthy family is the best antidote, the best tool we have at hand to combat the many ills and scourges affecting modern societies, including Chile, such as the loneliness that affects so many of our fellow citizens, the feeling that life lacks meaning, crime, drug addiction, children dropping out of school, children and senior citizens being abandoned," concluded the President.