Cecília Rocha was born in Porto Alegre (Rio Grande do Sul) on 21 May 1919, one year after the armistice of the First World War, with a mission of light. She was the daughter of José Rocha and Carmem Rocha. He was a miner from Sete Lagoas and she was a gaucho from the city of Jaguarão. Her father was a merchant. Her mother was a homemaker. She was the eldest of five siblings: Otávio, Alberto, Mário, and Fernando. She spent her childhood on Avenida Brasil, in the São Geraldo neighbourhood of Porto Alegre. After completing primary school, she attended secondary school at the Flores Cunha General Education Institute in Porto Alegre, where she completed her teaching degree in 1938, thus defining her brilliant future in the field of child and youth education.

 She then took a course in Teaching Methods and Techniques and did several internships in public schools in her hometown, seeking to improve her teaching skills. In 1940, she was appointed a public school teacher in Rio Grande do Sul, initially working in the interior of the state. Cecília brought an administrative and pedagogical approach to the schools she ran that stood out for its organisation and progress. She encouraged the school community to integrate with families and other local institutions, promoting cultural and civic activities that were of great importance to everyone. Her work was characterised by open dialogue with students, teachers and families, seeking to preserve and put moral values into practice. In this way, she could always count on everyone's support for her projects. The physical space of the schools under Cecília's leadership underwent constant transformations, as she spared no effort to improve the school facilities, from the classrooms to the garden and the vegetable patch.

To this end, she involved teachers, parents and the community, asking them to help her in this endeavour, which benefited the students, who now had a clean and pleasant school environment, despite it being a public school. Her dynamic work in public schools in the interior of the state of Rio Grande do Sul continued until 1947, when she was transferred to Porto Alegre to teach. In 1957, when she was already involved in the Gaucho Spiritist Movement as an evangelist, the young teacher was invited to take over the management of the private primary school of the Amigo Germano Spiritist Institute. The school was a welfare-based primary school dedicated to teaching literacy to underprivileged children, with teachers provided by the State Department of Education. In 1958, she participated in a gathering of young Spiritists from the north and northeast, held in Teresina, in the state of Piauí. Representing Rio Grande do Sul, she presented her experiences alongside her sister-in-law, Professor Dinah Rocha, in Gaucho lands. On that occasion, she spoke for the first time with Divaldo Pereira Franco, who invited her to visit the Mansão do Caminho (Mansion of the Way) and to guide the school that existed there. Cecília accepted the invitation and, in 1960, spent March to December at the Mansão do Caminho, where she worked as director of the Primary School of Divaldo Pereira Franco's Socio-Educational Work in Salvador, Bahia.

During that period, she acted as a true missionary of Spiritist education, with devotion and self-sacrifice in favour of the ideal. Her joy and technical knowledge captivated everyone, contributing pedagogically to improving the education of the children living at the House, teaching them singing, theatre, choir and, above all, discipline, always based on the Spiritist Codification. According to Divaldo, when he met Cecília Rocha, he had the opportunity to contact the Spirit Francisco Spinelli, who accompanied her, inspiring her in the development of the tasks to which she had dedicated her precious existence. The noble mentor informed him at that moment that she was someone committed to the missionary work of enlightening the consciences of children and young people in the clear light of Spiritism. The Bahian medium was very impressed with the simplicity and devotion of his dear friend, re-establishing bonds of great affection and respect, understanding the great importance of her ministry, the seriousness with which she exercised it, and her deep relationship with the venerable entities that administer the Spiritist movement in Brazil. Upon invitation, Cecília travelled to several municipalities in the interior of Bahia to spread the work of evangelisation and give lectures. When the school year ended, she returned to Porto Alegre.

She always found great support in Divaldo for the performance of her task. They kept in constant contact, and he took advantage of his travels to spread the word about the importance of the work she and her team were doing to prepare evangelisers. The Bahian tribune sought to provide strategic support for Cecília's travels, in terms of accommodation in the homes of his brothers and sisters in the various states of Brazil where she went with her team to carry out her work. In this way, they received all the love and support they needed to implement the Evangeliser Preparation Course, which was the main task at that time. In addition, Cecília and Dinah Rocha, being exemplary educators, became pioneers in this activity, although others were already doing it as well. They contributed child psychology and contemporary pedagogy (from that time), creating texts, stories and songs in which the teachings of Spiritism were introduced, perfectly adapted to the interests of the generations for whom they were intended.

 During the 1970s, Cecília worked in the management of institutions such as the Mahatma Gandhi Educational Association in Porto Alegre and the Hogar de los Pequeños de Jesús Primary School, caring for children in need and teaching special classes for students with mental disabilities. At that time, she studied with distinction at the Faculty of Education in Porto Alegre, graduating in 1976 with a degree in Education, specialising in School Administration. In 1980, Cecília Rocha moved from the Spiritist Federation of Rio Grande do Sul (FERGS) to the Brazilian Spiritist Federation (FEB) in Brasilia, as the unforgettable president Francisco Thiesen needed someone with extensive doctrinal knowledge and experience with children and young people in order to expand the programme of the Department of Children and Youth (DIJ) of the National Federative Council. No one better than the beloved educator from Rio Grande do Sul possessed all these qualities.

With true wisdom, Cecília did not stray from her roots of birth and doctrine, but rather knew how to build a strong bridge of connection, fulfilling her commitments in an elegant and joyful manner, without prejudice of any kind. Since 1983, Cecília has expanded her work in the area of teaching at the Brazilian Spiritist Federation. In addition to coordinating the DIJ, she took on the ESDE (Systematised Study of Spiritist Doctrine), Mediumship and the In-depth Study of Spiritist Doctrine. She also began to guide the development of the workbooks that provide didactic and pedagogical support for these activities. Cecília has been active in the area of Evangelisation of new generations since 1951, always seeking, with the various teams she has worked with, to update methodologies and strategies, safeguarding the evangelical-spiritist content that is the guiding principle of the activity. Among her many qualities, her loyalty to Spiritism, above personal interests and human affections, stands out. Her sincerity, made up of loyalty and love for the Cause, was one of the beautiful values of her behaviour. Her renunciation of family, affections, and comforts, travelling from one place to another, in Brazil and abroad, in days gone by, which were very difficult and prejudiced, unlike today, speak of the greatness of the Spirit that she is. Kindness, friendliness, and affection towards everyone are other values she possessed.

Since training as a teacher, Cecília has devoted herself to studying the lives and works of humanity's great educators, seeking in them a theoretical basis and inspiration for teaching practice. For her, Jerónimo de Braga, a disciple of Jan Huss, has always been a source of deep reflection on the question of selection and the importance of the content that should be taught to children and young people. This was one of her constant concerns as an educator: what to teach, what to offer the student, an immortal spirit passing through incarnation. Jon Amos Comeniuns was one of Cecilia's favourite teachers because she found many answers and suggestions on how to develop the selected content, helping her to reflect on which methodology would be most appropriate to really stimulate the student's interest, which would be the most significant resources to use that would truly awaken the latent potential within each student.

Cecília also sought inspiration and guidance in the ideals of Jean Jaques Rousseau, in Pestalozzi's pedagogical approach, proven by its practical application in Frederich Froebel and his early childhood teaching approach, as well as in Maria Montessori, among others. She always kept abreast of new theories on teaching and learning, carefully analysing the developments that emerged in pedagogy in the 20th and 21st centuries, proposing debates with the work teams she coordinated, seeking to absorb what was useful and good and would enrich the pedagogical work proposed by the FEB. She returned to the spiritual world in the early hours of 5 November 2012, at the Intensive Care Centre of the Santa Marta Hospital in the Federal District, at the age of 93.