Throughout several months last year, we had a series of conversations and gathered stories of twelve elderly people living in Solar das Camélias in Albergaria-a-Velha. We made history through stories, through lives. Moreover, we didn’t need the help of a muse; sitting and listening to someone who had something to share was all that was necessary. We gave voice to voices that are often not heard so that everyone can read and reread them, so that we can remind ourselves that every single life is a story waiting to be told.

Now that the project is over, we lay down our patchwork blanket for the world to read the lines that sew it together. It's a compilation made by Agora Aveiro nevertheless, it gathers little pieces of many different places, of endless travels and thoughts, of experiences, of lives, of advices they had to offer.  

We hope that you lose yourselves in these stories as much as we lost ourselves in the conversations that gave birth to them. Not every romance is fiction and, let me tell you a little secret: every writer is inspired by something they know when writing their stories. So, the challenge for those who read the voices of our masters is that they live a life as fulfilling and replenished of memory as the lives of these people. Who knows, someday you might as well become a master. Some people say that “remembering is to live”, but to live is also to create something worth remembering.

We hope that the voices of these masters inspire you to further listen to other voices around you, that it makes you see ageing as something natural and not the haunting chimera that so easily scares us and makes us let these people aside. Solitude can be fought with the mere act of sitting and listening to someone share what is flying through their mind.

You can read these incredible life stories on the I Love Aveiro page: agoraaveiro.org/iloveaveiro

“Voice of the Masters” is part of “I Love Aveiro” project and is organized by Agora Aveiro in partnership with Solar das Camélias under the European Solidarity Corps of the European Union. It also had the support from the Município de Aveiro and IPDJ - Instituto Português do Desporto e Juventude, I.P..