#sister rosita milesi

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Brazilian nun awarded UN refugee prize

Sister Rosita Milesi runs national network helping refugees across Brazil and has helped shape public policy.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees will present its annual Nansen Award to a Brazilian nun who has dedicated herself to helping migrants for decades.

The UN refugee agency announced the winner on Wednesday, lauding Sister Rosita Milesi for her work as a “lawyer, social worker and movement builder” helping internally displaced and stateless people over 40 years.

Milesi, 79, a member of the Catholic order of the Scalabrini nuns, had “personally assisted” thousands of people, ensuring them access to legal documents, shelter, food, healthcare, language training and the labour market, said UNHCR in a statement.

“If I take something on, I will turn the world upside down to make it happen,” said Milesi, the daughter of poor farmers of Italian extraction in southern Brazil, who became a nun at 19.

UNHCR highlighted Milesi’s work as a lawyer, saying it had been “instrumental” in shaping public policy – notably Brazil’s 1997 refugee law, which helped to improve refugee rights.

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