In 2021, Chile began a constitutional process that became a historic milestone for the country.
Citizens voted massively in favour of a new Constitution and for it to be drafted by a Constitutional Convention, rather than by the National Congress. This process wanted to respond to the demands of the social uprising of October 2019 and also to replace the 1980 Constitution, inherited from the Pinochet dictatorship.

In May 2021, 155 Constituents were elected through public votes, and the results showed a strong presence
of independents, representatives of Indigenous peoples, and women, after a national agreement on gender parity.In partnership with president of the Convention, Elisa Loncón, MHC proposed training delegates with the tools of The Mighty Heart Course to facilitate the process. A process which had already been very turbulent and complex.

The unprecedented pressure to draft the proposal in less than six months prevented the Convention members from accepting it. However, MHC nonetheless assembled the team in Chile to facilitate the course, and MHC translated The Mighty Heart Book into Spanish to be given to the participants.

The Convention began its work in July 2021 and spent a year drafting the new constitutional text.
Pioneering ideas and unprecedented rights were proposed, such as a Social, Ecological, and Democratic State, a Plurinational and Pluricultural State, the right to care, the right to the city and decent housing, the right to water and sanitation, and the right to a life free from gender-based violence.

Despite the high level of citizen participation –an online system was created for communities and organisations to submit their proposals– the process also faced controversy and criticism, especially due to the lack of cross-cutting agreements and some controversies involving certain Convention members. In addition fear-mongering and polarisation marketing campaign on social media and media were key factors that prevented the building of a broad consensus.

The final text, a 387-article document, was presented to the country in July 2022. The proposal included the creation of a social and democratic state of rights, a gender-sensitive justice system, and the protection of nature. However, on September 4, 2022, citizens went to the polls and rejected the text with 62% of the vote.

After the “rejection,” 15 former Constituents members, women political leaders, agreed to take the MHC course. They had been devastated by the result, some suffering from depression, mental health and illness issues due to the high professional and family costs entailed by the process.
The Mighty Heart course became a beautiful restoration and healing process for them and also a return to passion for their positions as agents of social and political change, as most of them stated at the beginning of the course that they wanted to leave politics after the aggression and psychological violence they experienced during the Constituent Assembly process.

At the end of the course, all the constituents declared their desire to return to their social and political work, but above all, to a new form of community leadership from the heart.