Margherita Nisbet

Margherita Nisbet was born on 16 March 1871 in Malua, in the archipelago of the Samoan Islands in Polynesia, into a family of missionaries and shepherds originally from the Waldensian Valleys.

When her father died in 1876, she and her mother returned to Italy. Here she lived with her uncle Pietro Lantaret, a pastor of the Waldensian church in Pomaretto and Moderator of the Waldensian Table. Pomaretto is symbolic of her childhood spent between studying and the church. She grew up and completed her studies with a postgraduate course in England.

On the 18^th of February 1897, in Pomaretto, she married the Waldensian pastor Augusto Coïsson. The couple set off almost immediately for the Zambesi region of Africa where she worked as a missionary for the Missionary Society of Paris.

In June 1898, the Nisbet- Coïsson couple set up a missionary station in Kazungula, near the Victoria Falls. While work continued on the railway line, the two missionaries gathered the first white settlers and extended their pastoral work not only to the native inhabitants but also to the workers employed on the construction site.

Their first three children were born there, while a fourth was born during their first period of leave in Italy in 1903. When they returned to Africa, the couple entrusted their children to the care of Augusto's sister, Cecilia Coïsson. Another daughter was born in Livingstone.

In 1907, the family moved to Mabumbu and then to Sefula, in the north of the country, where they founded and ran the Scuola Normale (today's Istituto Magistrale - Teacher Training College) to prepare native teachers to take part in the mission.

In 1908 Margherita returned to Italy to care for her family, spending the next four years in Torre Pellice. She moved back to Sefula with her husband in 1912 and their seventh child was born the following year.

Augusto Coïsson was in charge of the Scuola Normale until 1933 when the couple returned permanently to Italy.

Despite returning to her homeland, Margherita did not abandon her missionary vocation and, from 1933 to 1951, directed the three missionary societies of Torre Pellice.

She died on the 13^th of July 1951.

Story gathered thanks to the collaboration with Davide Rosso and the Centro Culturale Fondazione Valdese.