Nobel Peace Prize, 1979
Teresa of Calcutta, to whom the whole world links to the Indian city where she began her work, was called Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu and was born in 1910 in Skopje (then Albania and now Macedonia). When she turned 18, she decided on her missionary vocation and went to Dublin to join the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Loreto, developing important teaching work in India.
In January 1929 she arrived at Calcutta. She made the religious profession on May 24, 1931 and took the name of Teresa: not of the great Teresa of Avila, but that of the little Teresa: Teresa of Lisieux. In the convent of Calcutta she dedicated herself to teach Geography to Bengali and Anglo-Indian girls.
On September 10, 1946, an intimate experience urged her to serve the poorest of the poor. In 1948 she received the exclaustration permit and began her work teaching children from the suburbs, wearing a simple white cotton sari with blue stripes. Two years later she created the Congregation of the Missionaries of Charity
In 1952, she opened a center for the moribunds of all faiths in Calcutta and, since then, fulfilled the commitment of her call, attending to indigent, elders, abandoned children, lepers and AIDS patients all over the world. In 1979 she received the Nobel Peace Prize.
She died in Calcutta on September 5, 1997, at 87 years old. She was beatified on October 19, 2003 by Pope John Paul II, and canonized on September 4, 2016 by Pope Francis I.