According the last results there are 14.700 inhabitants.

21.

The council of Vieira do Minho belongs to the district of Braga and it has a great connection with Vale do Ave because the origin of the river is in Vieira do Minho. Its biggest characteristic is to be a council of mountain with its advantages and disadvantages. Concerning disadvantages, there’s difficulty of intervention. On the other hand, it has a great area (220 Km2). It’s one of the biggest councils of Braga, if not the biggest one, and that is also a difficulty because parishes are distant from the centre of the town.

The elements best characterize Vieira do Minho are, as I’ve already said, the mountain that has a very particular characteristic: it has four dams: Ermal, Caniçada, Salamonde and Venda Nova. It has, as biggest potentiality, the Mountain of Cabreira and, the Council of Vieira do Minho has been working in the sense of enriching the mountain. Vieira do Minho is a rural council where there is still a lot of agriculture and where the difficulty of getting a job is felt. It is also a council with certain potentialities for tourism.

It was agriculture in the past. Nowadays and according to a study done for the social net, the activity that prevails is services and out of the council. But we know that a lot of things that people do at the same time, has to do with agriculture, that is to mean, people have their normal activity (9 to 5) and then they work in agriculture.

Yes, there is. We don’t have concrete data but there is still a lot of emigration, mainly young people. We know there is still a lot of emigration to countries like Switzerland, Luxembourg and France because many people come back in the summer to see their relatives. So, the number of people in the summer is much bigger and that means there’s less population during winter.

We could do a lot of things and we are doing something. To convince people we have to have employment and this difficulty is enormous. On the other hand, it’s not easy for people to build in our rural councils because there are great restrictions according to law (Plano Director Municipal). We must support young people giving them opportunities of creating their own job, promoting tourism as an interesting activity, where new perspectives of employment can appear and so to encourage young people to live here. We are also betting in industry, creating conditions for companies and consequently creating employment. It hasn’t been easy because rural municipalities and the ones distant from the centre of the town, haven’t got the same opportunities as the other municipalities.

Yes, it has. Tourism is the answer because we have a very beautiful council, a council of the Minho, a very green council and it has four dams and the mountain of Cabreira. These potentialities are being explored but they must be better explored and we must give more value to small things and give them quality and this quality must be attractive so that tourism comes to Vieira do Minho.

Yes, it has. I’m saying this in terms of quantity and not because I’m the President. For example, how can we define development? If we think about roads, we have many more roads. If we think in quality and quantity of water, and this is very important for the quality of life, we have much more now. If we thing about basic sanitation, that is essential concerning hygiene and security, we have much more now. If we think in the services we offer, mainly to old people, we have many more now. We also have a sportive pavilion, swimming pools, a football field and many other structures that allow us to say that the council has been developing and that we are better than we were ten years ago.

No, Vieira do Minho has received many tourists because we have a lot of rural tourism houses and the camping but we don’t have a hotel with 50 or 60 bedrooms. The council can’t invest in hotels. It must be someone private to do it.

Concerning roads, it’s almost everything done. Concerning electricity, it’s the EDP (company) the responsible. This company has been doing what we ask. There’s light almost everywhere and if there is a house without it can have it. There’s an important road that should be made: Vieira – Guimarães but we have already built a new road: Vieira – Cerdeirinhas – Braga.

Of course, because the government doesn’t let us ask for loans to the banks. In the past we had a plan of activities and we did the planned with the loan, that had a limit. Now, we can’t do that so we can’t develop the council as we wish. This measure from the government has been a “brake” to the development.

A very simple message, that is: Vieira is a small council but it has future and potentialities that we have to exploit. During this interview I tried to give the idea that we have small things that we must give value, mainly the tourism, the patrimony, our culture…
So we have to be proud of being inhabitants of Vieira and we must trust that our future will be better than now.