Mariapia Garavaglia

Graduated in Literature and Political Sciences at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart of Milan, she has always dedicated herself to teaching and voluntary activities in the health and social sector. She was a teacher of Letters at high schools. She is a contract professor at the Faculty of Psychology of the Sapienza University of Rome. In the academic years 1996-2007 she held seminars at the Bioengineering Department of the Polytechnic University of Milan. She carries out training and advertising activities in newspapers and periodicals and has published books on health and bioethical issues.

Mariapia Garavaglia in 1992

In 1979 she was elected to the Chamber of Deputies for the Constituency of Milan and Pavia. Garavaglia made news internationally on 27 September 1980, when she was one of two Christian Democracy members who had arrived several minutes too late to participate in voting on her party's economic proposals, a 297 to 298 loss that caused Prime Minister Francesco Cossiga and his government to resign. [3] She was re-elected until 1994. From 1988 to 1992 she served as Undersecretary of the Ministry of Health and from April 1993 to May 1994 she held the position of Minister of Health.

From May 1995 to April 1998 she held the position of Extraordinary Commissioner of the Italian Red Cross,[4] while from April 1998 to October 2002 she was appointed President of the same.[5] From November 1997 to April 2004 she was Vice President of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies;[6] she was also President of the Coordination between the European Red Cross Societies.

From 24 June 2003 to 21 March 2008 she served also as Deputy Mayor of Rome.

In 2008 she was elected to the Senate of the Republic for the Constituency of Veneto among the ranks of the Democratic Party. Member of the "VII Commission of Education, University, Research, Cultural Heritage and Sport" and of the "Special Commission on Human Rights".