Helena Lopes da Silva

Helena Lopes da Silva (30 January 1949 – 8 September 2018) was a Cape Verdean-Portuguese surgeon, feminist and anti-colonialist activist. She was a founder of the Left Bloc and the first black woman to head an electoral list in Portugal.

Biography Born in Cape Verde to a petty-bourgeois family, Helena stayed in the country until she had completed her secondary education. In 1967, she moved to Portugal to attend university.

Political career Helena began her political career when she emigrated to Portugal. In Porto, she joined the student community and became close to a Trotskyist group. She took part in meetings where the struggle for the liberation of the Portuguese colonies was discussed, where political education was promoted and where relations of production, social classes and the proletariat were discussed. She began to receive training in the Cape Verdean national liberation struggle. After two years in Porto, she moved to Lisbon to get closer to her Cape Verdean colleagues. When she arrived in the Portuguese capital, she joined the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), a clandestine organisation under the Estado Novo. among the 248 people who signed the party's founding declaration. Helena was also a member of Cape Verde's Council of State, She went on to gain a master's degree in Health Management from the National School of Public Health at the NOVA University Lisbon. Between 1982 and 1983, at the invitation of the Board of the Calouste Gulbenkian School of Nursing, she taught Medical-Surgical Pathology and was also a Visiting assistant professor of surgery at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon between 1981 and 2016. She was also a Graduate Assistant in Surgery at the Hospital de Santa Maria (1998–2016) and headed the Surgery 1 Outpatient Team for 20 years. She was a member of the College of Surgery Speciality of the Portuguese Medical Association from 1993 She was also a member of the AEFMUL's Medical Association.

Helena Lopes da Silva died on 8 September 2018, at the age of 69.