Quintal da Esperança Inauguration - Reinvent your Neighbourhood

The community of Bairro das Portelas has transformed a wasteland into a garden called Quintal da Esperança. There was a big party at Quintal da Esperança, Bairro das Portelas, in Alcabideche, on the Sunday of the inauguration, with the promise that this is just the first party of many to follow. This is a space that was once a wasteland, full of scrubland, a nook avoided by the community, which is now, through the intervention of the very people who have lived there for years, a meeting place. The idea - there are always those who have them - came from young Jéssica Castro, who dragged the community along, taking advantage of the municipal programme called ‘Reinvent Your Neighbourhood’, plus the willingness of the Alcabideche Parish Council to support it. And, as José Filipe Ribeiro, the chairman of the council, said, quoting Fernando Pessoa: "God wills, man dreams, the work is born." And so the garden that was inaugurated this Sunday was born. Instead of the smell of flowers, it smelled of roast sardines, and instead of the chirping of birds, it had pimba music, because that's the dream, for now, and it takes on the name of Quintal, since friendship is fostered here and moments of conviviality between generations and different cultures are promoted. But as the vice-president of Cascais Town Hall, Nuno Piteira Lopes, said, the dream of yesteryear, projected onto the new technologies, could be tomorrow's nightmare and, in order to prevent this from happening, in other words, so that technology doesn't dehumanise us, doesn't lock us into a virtual reality, doesn't digitise our feelings, spaces like this are needed so that moments of sharing keep us more human and, once we are more human, we can once again exchange affection instead of ‘likes’, exchange kisses and hugs instead of emojis. The mayor also referred to a new pandemic called ‘loneliness’, the vaccine for which can only be inoculated, unlike COVID, in a climate of sharing, unlike the technological reality, in a real space, because in this case, socialising doesn't spread the disease, it spreads the cure.