Sister Rosita Milesi won the Nansen Refugee Award on Wednesday, an award given every year by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees to those who have devoted themselves to protecting displaced people.

Milesi, 79, is a member of the Catholic order of the Scalabrini nuns, who are known internationally for their work with refugees. Her parents were poor farmers of Italian background living in southern Brazil, and she became a nun at only 19 years old.

For 40 years, Milesi has used her training as a lawyer and social worker to fight for the rights of refugees and the internally displaced in Brazil. She now acts as director for the Migration and Human Rights Institute, a frontline humanitarian agency.

"I'm inspired by the growing need to help, to welcome and to integrate refugees," Milesi said in the statement. "I'm not afraid to act, even if we don't achieve everything we want to. If I take something on, I will turn the world upside down to make it happen."

Former laureates include Merkel, Roosevelt

Milesi joins the likes of former US first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, the group Doctors Without Borders (MSF), and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel as Nansen award winners.

First awarded in 1954, the Nansen Refugee Award is named after Norwegian humanitarian, scientist, explorer and diplomat Fridtjof Nansen.

Born in 1861, Nansen invented the so-called "Nansen passport" for stateless people, and was one of the first high commissioners for refugees for the precursor to the UN, the League of Nations, before his death in 1930. He was posthumously given the Nobel Peace Prize 1938 through the Nansen International Office for Refugees.

es/sms (AFP, Reuters)