Dorina Nowill

The Centro de Memória Dorina Nowill in São Paulo

Dorina de Gouvêa Nowill (born May 28, 1919 in São Paulo ; † August 29, 2010 there ) was a Brazilian educator and philanthropist. She was a pioneer in educating the blind in Brazil.

life and work

Nowill went blind at the age of 17 due to an eye infection. In 1945 she achieved it at the Caetano de Campos School in São Paulo that a first teacher specialization course for teaching the blind was carried out. After graduating as a teacher, she traveled to the United States on a grant from the American government to study at Columbia Universityattend a specialization course in the field of visual impairment. On March 11, 1946, she and Adelaide Reis de Magalhães and six other friends of the Caetano de Campos Normal School founded the Foundation for the Book of the Blind in Brazil, in which voluntary publications were written in Braille. This later became the Dorina Nowill Foundation. From 1961 to 1973, she headed the National Education Campaign for the Blind at the Ministry of Education and Culture. In 1979 she was elected President of the World Council for the Blind, spoke to the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1981 and worked for the creation of the Latin American Union of the Blind. In 1950 she married the lawyer Edward Hubert Alexander Nowill (1923-2013), whom she had met while studying at Columbia University as a scholarship holder. Nowill left five children and twelve grandchildren. The magazineÉpoca named her one of the 100 most influential Brazilians of the year in 2009. To commemorate her 100th birthday, Google published a Google Doodle on May 28, 2019.

Web links

Commons : Dorina Nowill - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

personal data
SURNAME	Nowill, Dorina
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Gouvêa Nowill, Dorina de (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Brazilian educator for the blind and philanthropist
DATE OF BIRTH	May 28, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH	São Paulo
DATE OF DEATH	August 29, 2010
Place of death	São Paulo