Helena Roseta

Maria Helena do Rego da Costa Salema Roseta (born 23 December 1947) is a Portuguese architect, specialising in improvements to poorer neighbourhoods, and a politician who was a member of the Assembly of the Republic and President of the Lisbon Municipal Assembly and Mayor of Cascais.

Early life Maria Helena do Rego da Costa Salema Roseta was born in Lisbon on 23 December 1947. She grew up in a family of 7 siblings. A student with excellent grades, she studied at the Maria Amália Vaz de Carvalho secondary school and in 1964/65 was awarded a national prize given to the student with the best grades. After leaving school she went to the School of Fine Arts at the University of Lisbon, where she took a degree in architecture. In 1967, after floods that killed 500 people in the Lisbon region, she became involved with other students to support the flooded areas and publicize the facts, despite the censorship efforts of the authoritarian Estado Novo regime. Her future husband, Pedro Roseta, was another of the students involved. They have three daughters, one of them is Filipa Roseta.

After graduating she worked with several architects, including Nuno Portas, , and . In 1973 she was elected Secretary-General of the National Union of Architects. In the same year she participated in the 3rd Congress of the Democratic Opposition, in Aveiro, where she spoke about housing problems. She was detained by the PIDE, the secret police of the Estado Novo, in the same year.

Other activities Between 1991 and 1995 Roseta taught the subjects of Urbanism and Citizenship, and Urbanism and Municipalities at the Universidade Lusófona in Lisbon. Between 1995 and 1997 she served as an OECD expert on Urban Sustainability. In 1993, she took over the management of Botequim, a bar in Graça, Lisbon previously owned by the poet and social activist, Natália Correia, who died in that year. Later, she took responsibility for organizing the poet's intellectual estate. In 1998, she promoted the Yes for Tolerance movement during the national referendum on decriminalizing abortion. She chaired the National Council of the Order of Architects from 2001 to 2007. She was the founder of the National Association of Portuguese Municipalities. Since 2018, she has been a member of the Board of the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences of the NOVA University Lisbon and she also works with the same university as a collaborative researcher in the research group on "Cities, Environment and Regional Development".

Later political life In a break with the PS, she launched the Citizens Movement for Lisbon in 2007. In 2008, the Citizens Movement reached an agreement with the then mayor, António Costa, to work together. Roseta was responsible for drafting the Local Housing Program in Lisbon. In 2009, the Citizens for Lisbon movement ended up in coalition with the PS. She was elected as a councillor, and was given the portfolio of Housing and Social Development. In 2011, she launched the BIP-ZIP Lisbon Programme, which was designed to boost partnerships and small local interventions to improve Lisbon's neighbourhoods by supporting projects carried out by parish councils, associations, local authorities, communities and non-governmental organizations. The programme was given an award by the International Observatory for Participatory Democracy (OIDP).

Awards and honours Roseta received the Council of Europe Pro-Merito Medal in 1982.