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Westchester High School Teacher To Be Honored For Work As Refugee Advocate

SCARSDALE, N.Y. - A Scarsdale High School teacher is being celebrated by a prominent national organization for her work advocating for refugees in America.

Maggie Favretti.

Maggie Favretti.

Photo Credit: Contributed

Longtime teacher Maggie Favretti, the founder and advisor of the international group “Students for Refugees” will be honored by the Sousa Mendes Foundation at a luncheon titled “A Toast to Freedom!” later this year at the Museum of Jewish Heritage on Battery Place in Manhattan.

According to the Foundation, Favretti “is a believer in learning by doing,” having created a number of “empowering” courses that includes Food Policy and Justice and City 2.0.

Last year, she teamed with a colleague in Germany to design an exchange program with the purpose of studying the refugee crisis with a small group of students. Those students created “Students for Refugees,” which now has more than 20 chapters throughout Westchester and the world, supporting students “in their efforts to help refugees, advocates for refugee use and directly assists in resettlement.”

The Sousa Mendes Foundation, founded in 2010, is dedicated to perpetuating the memory of Aristides de Sousa Mendes as an example of compassion and moral courage. He rescued the lives of thousands of refugees in 1940 in Bordeaux, France, where he was stationed as the Consul General of Portugal. 

Other honorees at the October luncheon include Congressman Jerrold Nadler, who has advocated for refugees and author Eva Fogelman, who is an authority on Holocaust history and wrote “Conscience and Courage: Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust.” 

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