Dorina Nowil

Dorina de Gouvêa Nowill (28 May 1919 – 29 August 2010) was a Brazilian educator and philanthropist. She was a pioneer activist for the education of the blind in Brazil.

Life and career Dorina Nowill was born in São Paulo. She became blind at age 17 because of an eye infection, which led to bleeding. Blindness, however, did not stop her from pursuing a career in education.

In 1945, she managed to convince the Caetano de Campos school, where she attended the teaching profession and would graduate as a teacher, to implement the first course of teacher specialization for the education of the blind. At that time, Braille books in Brazil were very rare and she had to attend school as a normal student. After graduating, she traveled to the United States with a scholarship paid by the American government to attend a course of specialization in the area of visual deficiency, at Columbia University.

Personal life She married lawyer Edward Hubert Alexander Nowill (1923-2013), the son of an English Protestant pastor, whom she met in the United States while studying at Columbia University as a scholarship scholar for education and rehabilitation of blind people.

Dorina Nowill died at the age of 91, victim of a cardiac arrest. She was hospitalized about 15 days ago at Santa Isabel Hospital, in the west zone of São Paulo, to treat an infection. The funeral took place in the headquarters of the foundation that takes her name. Nowill left five children and twelve grandchildren.