The Sérgio Vieira de Mello Chair (CSVM- CAPES Print) is coordinated by Prof. Florian Hoffmann and includes the participation of the following PPGD faculty members: Florian Fabian Hoffmann, Adriano Pilatti, Danielle Moreira, Mauricio Rocha, and Noel Struchiner, as well as professors from different departments and areas at PUC-Rio: Roberto V. Yamato (International Relations Institute/PUC-Rio), Ariane Paiva (Social Work/PUC-Rio), Rosana Kohl Bines (Letters/PUC-Rio), Liana Biar (Letters/PUC-Rio), Maria Helena Zamora (Psychology/PUC-Rio), Maria Helena Rodriguez (International Relations Institute/PUC-Rio), Monah Winograd (Psychology/PUC-Rio), and Teresa Dias Carneiro (Letters/PUC-Rio).

The CSVMs are a university network initiated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and are dedicated to studies on refuge, migration, and mobility in Brazil. The Chair raises society’s awareness of refugee issues and the situation of asylum seekers and refugees through the production of scientific knowledge.

The project aligns with the concentration area of State Theory and Constitutional Law and the research area of Human Rights, Democracy, and International Order because it addresses refuge, migration, and mobility within the framework of International Human Rights Law. It approaches these topics in their entirety, encompassing civil, political, social, economic, cultural, and environmental rights, as well as diffuse and collective rights, nationality rights, and global circulation processes. In articulation with the PPGD’s concentration area, these rights are analyzed in relation to the democratic-representative regime and the material and symbolic conditions that impact their exercise. The CSVM has received support from one of the PUC-Rio CAPES PRINT projects since 2021.

We highlight two extension projects in which we worked in 2024: the project Histórias de migração e refúgio no espaço escolar: narrar, conviver, transformar (Stories of migration and refuge in the school environment: narrating, coexisting, transforming), and the Rota de Direitos (Rights Route) project. The first project has been developing integration strategies in meetings with about 15 Venezuelan students, aged 10 to 14, at the Professora Zuleika Nunes de Alencar Municipal School in Barra da Tijuca, Rio de Janeiro, since the second half of 2022. The CSVM at PUC-Rio also participates in the Rota de Direitos project, with community efforts to provide services to migrant and refugee populations in Rio de Janeiro. This project is led by the Public Defender’s Office of the State of Rio de Janeiro and involves the main institutions that deal with the issue in the municipality and state, such as the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the National Committee for Refugees (CONARE/RJ), the Caritas RJ Program for Assistance to Refugees and Asylum Seekers (PARES), and the State Inter-sectoral Committee for Refugee and Migrant Care Policies (CEIPARM/RJ).