Contributors

EurAfrican 2023

Fernanda Freitas

Journalist, former TV Host, Author, Chairman of Associação Nuvem Vitória
Portugal

Mother, volunteer and entrepreneur. 

Originally from Porto, Portugal, she says she has two favourite verbs: to thank and to serve.

She is a journalist by training, leads a communication company, but it was in social entrepreneurship that she found her great passion.

Fernanda Freitas began her professional experience at Radio Press Porto and Radio Paris Lisboa.

In 1992, she took the first steps in her television career. 

She coordinated and presented the National television daily programme “Civil Society”, an experience that provided the opportunity to work directly with hundreds of entities in Portuguese society.

“Civil Society”, which is still being broadcast, is a milestone in the history of Fernanda Freitas who won 14 awards and distinctions as the main figure of the programme. 

In literature, she stands out as the author of the book “Sem Medo, Maria” – portraits of domestic violence in Portugal” and the children’s book “Porque não dormem os gatos?”.

In line with her profile of commitment to social responsibility, Fernanda Freitas was National Ambassador of the European Year against poverty and social exclusion, in 2010; National President of the European Year of Volunteering, in 2011; and Ambassador of the European Year of Active Ageing and Solidarity between Generations, in 2012.

In 2013 she was decorated by the President of the Portuguese Republic, Aníbal Cavaco Silva, with the Order of Civil Merit.

Fernanda Freitas engages her social entrepreneurship on several fronts: she is a founding member of the Forum for the Rights of Children and Young People; a founding member of the Reading Volunteers Association; Ambassador of the “Portugal sou Eu” Movement; and founder of the Moda’R Mentalidades Movement, which aims to promote the inclusion of disabled people through fashion.

She divides most of her days between leading “Eixo Norte Sul”, a content and communication company she founded, and as President of “Nuvem Vitória”, an association that brings together more than 800 volunteers every night, to read bedtime stories to children hospitalised in paediatric wards in Portugal.