Vânia Andrea de Castro Jesus (born 17January 1979) is a Portuguese politician. A member of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), she represented the

Autonomous Region An autonomous administrative division (also referred to as an autonomous area, zone, entity, unit, region, subdivision, province, or territory) is a subnational administrative division or territory, internal territory of a sovereign state that has ...

Madeira Madeira ( ; ), officially the Autonomous Region of Madeira (), is an autonomous Regions of Portugal, autonomous region of Portugal. It is an archipelago situated in the North Atlantic Ocean, in the region of Macaronesia, just under north of ...

in the Assembly of the Republic of Portugal between 2009 and 2011.

Early life

Vânia Andrea de Castro Jesus was born in

Santa Cruz, Madeira Santa Cruz (; "Holy Cross") is a municipality, a parish and a city in the eastern part of the island of Madeira. It is the second most populous municipality, behind Funchal. The population in 2011 was 43,005, in an area of 81.50 km2. History ...

on 17 January 1979. In 2000, she obtained a degree from the Higher Institute of Business and Labour Sciences – ISCTE in Lisbon, in modern and contemporary history, specialising in cultural management. She received a Master's in European political theory from the

Complutense University of Madrid The Complutense University of Madrid (, UCM; ) is a public research university located in Madrid. Founded in Alcalá in 1293 (before relocating to Madrid in 1836), it is one of the oldest operating universities in the world, and one of Spain's ...

in 2006.

Political career

After completing her first degree, Jesus worked for the newspaper ''Jornal da Madeira'', for ''Rádio Jornal da Madeira'', and at the municipality of Santa Cruz. After obtaining her second degree she became an advisor to the PSD Parliamentary Group at the Madeira Regional Assembly and between 2008 and 2011 she was leader of the

youth wing A youth wing is a subsidiary, autonomous, or independently allied front of a larger organization (usually a political party but occasionally another type of organization) that is formed in order to rally support for that organization from members ...

of Madeira's PSD. She was elected deputy to the

Legislative Assembly of Madeira The Legislative Assembly of Madeira () is the legislature of the Portuguese autonomous region of Madeira. The last regional election was held on 23 March 2025, won by the Social Democratic Party (PSD) with 62,059 votes (43.41% share). Power ...

in 2007 and was elected to the Assembly of the Republic of Portugal in 2009, where she served on the European Affairs and Education and Science committees. After losing her seat in the national parliament she returned to the Madeira assembly, being re-elected in 2011 and 2015 and leaving in 2017. In addition, she served on the Parish Assembly of Gaula between 2008 and 2009 and on the Municipal Assembly of Santa Cruz between 2013 and 2017.

Other activities

From 2017, Jesus was appointed as chair of the Board of Directors of the Madeira social housing company, ''Investimentos Habitacionais da Madeira'', which had as its goal the construction, management and rehabilitation of housing for needy families. In late-2019 she transferred from that position to become Chair of the Madeira Employment Institute.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jesus, Vânia 1979 births Living people Members of the 11th Assembly of the Republic (Portugal) Women members of the Assembly of the Republic (Portugal) Social Democratic Party (Portugal) politicians People from Santa Cruz, Madeira 21st-century Portuguese women politicians Complutense University of Madrid alumni