Sr Margaret receives flowers at a special ceremony in honour of her 40-year anniversary in Brazil, held at the AAVE Group Centre in Goiana, Brazil this month.
Misean Cara extends sincere congratulations to Sr Margaret Hosty, who in 2025 celebrates 40 years since arriving in Brazil to serve as a missionary with the Sisters of Saint Louis, a Misean Cara member organisation.
For Sr Margaret Hosty SSL, a native of Cloonfad Co. Roscommon, the past 40 years living and working in Brazil have flown by. In 2025, Sr Margaret celebrates four decades of service there, having dedicated her life to helping those living with HIV/AIDS through an organisation called AAVE Group, which she co-founded in the Brazilian city of Goiânia in 1995.
“It’s hard to believe I’m 40 years in Brazil already! I feel privileged and blessed to have worked here in Brazil for so long. It’s been a challenge but a challenge I’ve enjoyed. Living and working among the poor with HIV has contributed greatly to making me who I am today. I am grateful to God, to the Sisters of St Louis, to the AAVE Group and to all those whose lives have touched mine.”
Growing up in a family of 12 on a farm in Cloonfad, Sr Margaret knew from early in life, as a child in primary school, that she wanted someday to devote her life to missionary work in Latin America. She left home in 1967 to enter novitiate life in California with the Sisters of Saint Louis, where she later graduated from Cal State Fullerton and began working as a teacher. When the opportunity came along to move to Brazil in 1985, she jumped.
“It’s hard to believe I’m 40 years in Brazil already! I feel privileged and blessed to have worked here in Brazil for so long. It’s been a challenge but a challenge I’ve enjoyed. Living and working among the poor with HIV has contributed greatly to making me who I am today. I am grateful to God, to the Sisters of St Louis, to the AAVE Group and to all those whose lives have touched mine.”
“When I came to Brazil, I first had to learn Portuguese, the language we speak here. I then taught English and also began working with a group of washerwomen… women who wash other’s clothes by hand and iron them, accompanying them as they formed a syndicate to protect their rights as workers.”
At the same time Sr Margaret was also helping out in a parish on the outskirts of Goiânia where there wasn´t a priest. It was through a colleague and friend in parish work that she first met, and came to know, someone with AIDS.
“I myself knew almost nothing about AIDS at the time, and from seeing the discrimination my friend suffered, I realised that so many others were also ill-informed, leading to fear and stigma for those with HIV/AIDS. After his death, I felt I needed to do something about this, and that was how I got into working with and for people living with HIV and AIDS and founded the AAVE Group.”
The AAVE Group (which in English stands for: AIDS, Assistance, Life, Hope: in Portuguese: AIDS, Apoio, Vida, Esperança) works with people with HIV/AIDS and their families, providing psychological support and counselling, home and hospital visits, advice on their rights and legal entitlements, and training for income generating skills to help people who have lost their incomes due to HIV/AIDS become financially self-sufficient and provide for themselves and their families. Social support and a sense of community is central to the work of AAVE, creating a place for people to be welcome and escape the stigma and misunderstanding that still exists around HIV/AIDS.
Advocacy and outreach in the poor and marginalised areas of Goiânia are also important. “We go out into the community, to schools, church groups, factories, and door-to-door in neighbourhoods to give correct information and to encourage early testing.”
The AAVE Group is funded entirely by donations and grant funding, including support from Misean Cara, an Irish NGO, via the Irish Aid Programme. The Sisters of St Louis, Sr Margaret’s congregation, is a member organisation of Misean Cara.
In 2023, Sr Margaret was honoured with a Human Rights award from the Brazilian State of Goiás, for her decades of service on behalf of people with HIV/AIDS.
Over more than 40 years, Sr Margaret is open about having witnessed and grown from the HIV and AIDS community that she serves and works alongside at AAVE. “One thing I’ve learned from these people is that they have hope, they need hope, and that they live in the present. As people with a serious illness, they don’t have the certainty of tomorrow. I think my work with people living with HIV/AIDS has helped me to live more in the present.”
Learn more about the AAVE Group here.
