A month from municipalities, Cova da Moura has returned to the political debate, with the amateur PSD candidate announced that he wants to eradicate the neighborhood, where about eight thousand people live. But Cova da Moura, despite the needs, is not the same as the 80s.
Much changed in Cova da Moura, largely thanks to a woman who helped bring water and sewers to the neighborhood, set up a library to the children and helped found the youth mill, the association that still has a determining role in the lives of many people living there.
It was at the house of lIeve Meersschaert that the first meeting of the Youth Mill took place on November 1, 1984. At the time, they fought for a water and sewage system. They only had two taps for 900 people.
Everything was going on in the attic of the house of Lieve, who lives alone since her husband died ten years ago. At the time, the space served for meetings of the maids union and the makeshift library. Now it is a place of support for the neighborhood, children, young people and the elderly who seek jobs, who want to study or even those who Need help to legalize in Portugal.
Lieve says the Moinho studio was Built by the people of the neighborhood, by the hands of some 14 and 15 -year -olds who were used to sell drugs. In the 1980s, he says, the house of known as “mother of the neighborhood”, served as safe space and creativity. Even today Lieve keeps all the drawings of the children of Cova da Moura, who were the children who never had.
Lieve arrived in Portugal with just over 30 years, coming from Belgium, by car, in a mini. The idea was not to stay.
“I intended to go to Brazil, but I thought Brazil was a little far away and first wanted to learn Portuguese. So I thought, I go to Portugal.
The neighborhood has been home for 42 years.
“I live here with the immense taste of this neighborhood and I like people a lot, because I feel that there is a lot of humanity and values that were lost. Here everyone knows, everyone, and talk to people. Here, there are problems, isn’t it? But there are problems everywhere,” he said.
The problems to be referred to are the ones who almost always bring the cova da moura to the newspapers: the Crime, violence and drug business. Does not deny that it exists, mThey say they are used to create prejudices about a neighborhood where it is good to live.
“They are, above all, migrants. So they use this to fear people, to put hatred and violence. I am very afraid that people do not open their eyes and do not see what is happening,” he continued.
Lieve refers to the extreme right speech. Less than a month from the municipalities, it remembers that the youth mill I already got a lot from Cova da Moura, Mthe ones that still have a lot to do. There are still those who do not have light, water and sewage,m illegal neighborhood that began to form in the late 1960s with the arrival of people from the old colonies.
80 years old, Lieve is now dedicated to reading tWhat you couldn’t read in the bustling years of life. And writes. Is away from the direction of the mill, because I wanted to pass the testimony to the younger ones,The young people don’t want to drop it.
He lives alone, but he doesn’t feel alone. The door of the house is always open and there are always those who want to enter.
