Activities
4. Stopping the Exodus
You are the Mayor of Oporto, in northern Portugal. Your main task at the moment is to stop so many young men leaving the area.
You are going to present a plan at next month’s city council meeting. It must have three sections:
1. Why the young men leave.
2. What their leaving does to the region – to families, to community life, to the economy.
3. How could emigration be slowed down or stopped?
You can find information for sections 1 and 2 in these net notes and the television programme ‘The emigrants’, as well as from your knowledge of other areas where emigration is found, for example southern Italy.
You can find ideas for section 3 from website: http://www.geocities.com/Paris/4118/travel15.htm
and from the fact file below:
FACT FILE
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In the last few years the area inland of Oporto has received quite a lot of outside help.
Much of the infrastructure for the future is in place. European Union money has been spent on high quality motorways which give easier access to the winding Douro river valley.
Dams have been built to make it navigable, and what was once a river that flooded at random is not a waterway all year round.
This has encouraged tourism in the region with boat trips ferrying sightseers up and down river.
There are new hotels aimed at the upmarket end of the holiday trade.
For tourists willing to make a bit of an effort the Douro valley is definitely one of Europe’s best kept secrets. |
