Nuri Vallbona

Nuri Vallbona

Nuri Vallbona is a freelance documentary photojournalist who has focused most of her career on social justice projects such as modern-day slavery, inner-city poverty and crime. She worked for the Miami Herald from 1993 to 2008 and is a lecturer at the University of Texas and Texas Tech University.

Her work has won her awards and honors from the National Press Photographers Association, the Pictures of the Year competition, The Southern Short Course competition, The Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar, the Associated Press Managing Editors contest, and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. She was also a finalist for the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography and worked on the front lines of the Elian Gonzalez saga that won the Miami Herald newsroom a Pulitzer in 2001.

In 1999, some of her work from "Americanos" was featured in an exhibit at the Smithsonian. This was followed by a Nieman fellowship at Harvard University in the fall of 2000.

By this Author

Sr. Sandra López García chats with Los Monckis youth gang members during one of her team's weekly visits to their hangout in Monterrey, Mexico, in May. (Nuri Vallbona)

Mexico's sisters accompany youth gang members: 'They make me turn the page'

On the streets of Mexico, Catholic sisters and lay missionaries pay weekly visits to "chavos banda," youth gangs who are not affiliated with drug cartels. They offer direction and companionship to the young gang members.

Casa Guerrero drug rehabilitation center patients Eric Montoya, from left, Nicolás de la Cruz Agustín and José Santos Carbona Puente, right, listen as Sr. Sandra López García offers final thoughts during a May visit in Guadalupe, Mexico, on the edge of Monterrey. (Nuri Vallbona)

At drug rehab center, sisters offer spiritual, emotional support to youth gang members

Sr. Sandra López García and her team minister to youth gang members unaffiliated with cartels. As part of their ministry, they regularly visit some of the gang members in six drug rehab centers across Monterrey, Mexico.

Teresian Sr. Mary Lou Aldape shows off her stuffed animals in the library at Sacred Heart Catholic School in Uvalde, Texas, in August 2022. (OSV News/Courtesy of Catholic Extension/Juan Guajardo)

Q & A with Sr. Mary Lou Aldape, helping survivors of a school shooting heal

Sr. Mary Lou Aldape spoke with GSR about working with survivors of the May 2022 Robb Elementary School mass shooting. She is part of a team at Sacred Heart School in Uvalde trying to help those students heal emotionally.

Camp I-CAN for rising third, fourth and fifth graders from Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, included spiritual activities, songs and games. (Courtesy of Dolores Aviles)

Intercongregational camp offers Uvalde students a place where 'the soul heals'

Sr. Dolores Aviles organized Camp I-CAN for students who experienced the mass shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas. The goal was to give them a sense of normalcy, help them heal and, above all, let them have fun.

Haitian immigrants make their way along a rope suspended above the Rio Grande on their way to the United States Sept. 22. (Nuri Vallbona)

Faith groups band together to help Haitians camped at US-Mexico border

As the number of Haitian arrivals seeking a better life in the U.S. swelled, Catholic sisters, religious organizations, nonprofits and churches pursued a common goal: provide basic services and restore human dignity.

Sr. Mercedes Castillo prays over a Peruvian woman who only wanted to be known by the initials A.N. in the courtyard of the El Buen Samaritano shelter in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, on March 27. (Nuri Vallbona)

Q & A with Sr. Mercedes Castillo, accompanying immigrants on the border

As COVID-19 raged around the globe, Sr. Mercedes Castillo left the safety of her Baltimore community of Comboni Missionaries and relocated to Texas, where she serves immigrants stuck at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Sr. Thérèse Cunningham, center, spends pre-pandemic time with guests at La Posada Providencia, an emergency shelter in San Benito, Texas.

Despite pandemic, sisters bring material aid, moral support to migrants

Sisters on the border hear the tragic stories that forced people to seek asylum in the U.S. only to be deported. Immigration proceedings are on a loop of delays or cancellations — made more dangerous by COVID-19.

Welcome of the heart: Sisters build bonds in collaborative effort to assist immigrants

Sister immigration lawyers ply expertise at border, in courtrooms

Immigrant families endure separation, court and uncertainty of 'zero tolerance'

Immigrants, advocates fortify resources after Trump election

'Dreamers' respond to President-elect Trump's proposed immigration policies

Immigration advocates, Catholic sisters, hope Texas ruling is step to ending family detention

Respite center in Texas hosts resurgent influx of immigrants

New wave of unaccompanied minors at US border will shelter in camps run by faith groups

Syrian refugee families denied parole, now face Christmas in Texas detention centers

Refugees start new life in Houston thanks to programs in growing archdiocese

Q & A with Sr. Norma Pimentel: Meeting Pope Francis

Pope Francis’ surprise call thanks sister for immigration ministry

Judge orders government to free children and their parents from detention