Margarida Tengarrinha is the winner of the first edition of the «Maria Veleda» Regional Award, announced the Regional Directorate of Culture of the Algarve, which promotes the award.
Last Friday, October 10, the jury analyzed the 11 applications received for the 2014 «Maria Veleda» Regional Award, and unanimously decided to award it to Maria Margarida Carmo Tengarrinha Campos Costa, better known as Margarida Tengarrinha, for «considering his civic activity in the social development of the Algarve, his cultural journey linked to the visual arts, research and the history of the region, as well as all his participation in the democratic formation of Portugal throughout his life , make it the protagonist of a particularly relevant intervention in the culture of the Algarve, thus fulfilling the objective of this award».
Margarida Tengarrinha, speaking to the Sul Informação, said she was "astonished" with the award of the prize, since, "because of my connection to the Communist Party, I thought the jury wouldn't choose me." In fact, the winner made a point of praising the "jury exemption".
Despite being “astonished” at having been chosen, the writer, painter, researcher and member of PCP's DORAL said she already knew she had been nominated, “because they had called me to ask for biographical elements”.
"But I never thought about it again and I didn't think I could win," he guaranteed. In any case, Margarida Tengarrinha said she was "satisfied", especially because the figure who inspired the award, Maria Veleda, «she is one of the Algarve and Portuguese women I most admire».
«Of the republicans of the 1st Republic, Maria Veleda is, by far, the woman I most admire, for being a woman who had a deep political conscience, in relation to what the Republic should be – and which was not… -, but also because to be a woman who worked with the orphans, organizing help for single mothers. She was an extraordinary republican, she was one of the first conscious Portuguese revolutionaries, to the point of having acted», she considered, in her statements to the Sul Informação.
In other words, due to her past as a resistant anti-fascist, who exchanged the comfortable life of the daughter of a bourgeois family in Portimão for the dangerous life in hiding, fighting against the Dictatorship, well before the 25th of April 1974, Margarida Tengarrinha sees herself again a little bit on the figure that inspires the award.
Alexandra Gonçalves, regional director of Culture of the Algarve and, in that capacity, member of the jury, told our newspaper that the choice of Margarida Tengarrinha was «an excellent decision».
«It was unanimously and he is a person to whom the Algarve should have already shown its recognition. His civic intervention was very comprehensive, having played an important role in the defense of the region, its traditions, its heritage, its art. Her 80 years of life have been enormously rich in many areas of society and I even consider her a national personality. As a woman, she was also very audacious, as she assumed political functions at a time when it was not common, having also been an active voice in gender equality and equality of opportunities», she added.
Therefore, concluded Alexandra Gonçalves, this choice “is fully in the spirit of the Prize and gives it the credibility for its continuation”.
O «Maria Veleda» Regional Award was created by the Regional Directorate of Culture of the Algarve to highlight and recognize the cultural activity of Algarve personalities, protagonists of particularly relevant and innovative interventions in the Region, and also to make a contribution to the measure «Women Creators of Culture», advocated in the V National Plan for Gender Equality, Citizenship and Non-Discrimination, taking place in the period 2014-2017.
The Jury, with a two-year term, is made up of Alexandra Rodrigues Gonçalves, Regional Director of Culture of the Algarve, who chaired the meeting, Ana Paula Amendoeira, Regional Director of Culture of Alentejo, António Branco, Rector of the University of Algarve, Idálio Revez, journalist, José Carlos Barros, landscape architect and poet, Lídia Jorge, writer, Mirian Nogueira Tavares, director of the Faculty of Human and Social Sciences at UAlg, Natividade Monteiro, researcher, and Paulo Cunha, music teacher.
At the decision-making meeting, the Jury met with seven of its nine members, and António Branco and Mirian Tavares each produced a general opinion on the candidacies, with an express indication of the direction of the determination of the personality to be highlighted, which were read by the President of the Jury.
The Regional Directorate of Culture of the Algarve also congratulates the other candidates for the projects and actions that each one has carried out and that have greatly contributed to the cultural development of the Algarve.
The award ceremony, which this year 2014 has a donation of 5.000 euros and a commemorative medal, by the cork company Pelcor, which is thus associated with the «Maria Veleda» Regional Award, is scheduled for next November, in space and date to be announced shortly.
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