COLLECTION

Maria Raquel Ribeiro

A social worker from Cadaval, she began her academic career at the Odivelas Institute, where she graduated from high school. Later, in 1948, she completed a degree in Social Work at the Lisbon Higher Institute of Social Work. An obligatory reference in Portuguese Social Security, the forerunner of many intervention strategies that are now consolidated, she introduced the theme of active ageing in Portugal, defending the dignity of longevity through a positive, multidisciplinary and integrated vision and practice. 

From her long professional career as a social worker, civil servant and deputy (between 1969 and 1973), she was a social worker at the Instituto de Assistência à Família in 1949 and at the Santa Casa da Misericórdia between 1951 and 1971. She held management positions in public bodies such as the Family and Social Action Institute, was an advisor to the Secretaries of State for Returnees, Social Security and the Minister for Social Affairs (1975-1981), and president of the Installation Committee and the Board of Directors of the Lisbon Regional Social Security Center (1981-1988).

Civil society was also part of his concerns, and he was a member of various national and international social committees and structures. The documental nucleus is made up of a set of Maria Raquel Ribeiro's personal documents, mainly relating to her professional activity as a parliamentarian and social worker.