In Cachão, a small village located at Trás-os-Montes, there is silence and monotony. The agro industrial complex, created in 60th, employed hundreds of people. Since 1974 the project has been increasingly abandoned, and officially closed in 1992. The big industrial complex, which was the great strength behind the economy in Trás-os-Montes, is now reduced to ruins of imposing buildings and practically a ghost village.
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The inner north of Portugal has been forgotten and neglected for a long time and is currently one of the poorest regions of the country.
Its landscape is marked by the abandonment of the lands, villages and factories, ruins which evoke memories of better times, job opportunities, more people and children.
Life here seems overshadowed by loneliness, apathy, emptiness, hopelessness and uncertainty regarding the future.
When confronted with the difficulties of the hard rural life, most young people dream about leaving the region and country. Those who stay, face the monotony and days that repeat themselves over and over again.
Portugal crosses one of the toughest moments since the end of the dictatorship in 1974. The austerity policies, adopted by the Portuguese government, drove many families into poverty, mortgaging the country’s future.