🌋 so how did casa da horta start?

[Casa da Horta]

Get yourself a cup of tea!  Here comes the story of how it all started! How Casa da Horta started! 🌋🌋 It's a wild one! So there were these crazy youngsters - Diana, Nezia and Pedro (and, soon after PJP!), who refused to accept the usual rules.  They believed that cooperation could exchange competition. They imagined a place where care was more important than profit, where creativity could drive social change, where learning happened through doing; where food could bring people together while respecting the animals and the planet, and where abandoned spaces could be transformed into a place of life, ideas, and community. And that all this can happen in Porto, a very different Porto of 17 years ago.  Finding a home for all this was a horror! (even if the city was full of abandoned buildings)  Asking the municipality for support also didn’t work. So, when the team finally found the abandoned house (in Ribeira, one of the least privileged and… cheapest areas of the city :)) that would become Casa da Horta, it needed almost everything: repairs, furniture, electricity, and, most importantly, people willing to believe in the project. Friends appeared with chairs, neighbors offered tools, volunteers showed up with paintbrushes, and slowly the house became alive. The process was messy, collective, and deeply human — exactly how Casa da Horta still is.  To keep the project sustainable without losing its values, Casa da Horta opened a vegan canteen. The restaurant co-supports the association economically, while showing that it’s possible to shape work spaces to reflect values and ethical choices.  Time has passed, people have come and they have left! It is not a perfect model. Man, it surely isn’t. But look how beautifully it can work! Casa da Horta is a reminder that community is something we build together — sometimes seriously, sometimes joyfully, usually imperfectly — but always with the clarity that a different way of living is possible (only!) WHEN WE WORK TOGETHER!  So, maybe go talk to your friends? And neighbors! 🌱🌱🌱 PS. Wanna hear the crazy youngsters telling the story themselves? Click HERE.  AND IF YOU CAN AND WANT TO SUPPORT OF FIGHT OF SURVIVING EVIL EVICTION!!!  JOIN OUR CROWDFUNDING  HERE

THANK YOU GUYZ!!! 😭😭😭