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About us

Fábrica de Histórias® is an educational service provided by CABEÇUDOS – Cabeças com ideias (Heads with ideas), founded in 2010 with the aim of enriching the educational and cultural scene dedicated to children and young people. The Fábrica de Histórias project is run by CABEÇUDOS – Cabeças com Ideias, an independent entity, managed by a courageous and passionate couple, Raquel and Rui, who, since 2010, dedicate themselves, body and soul, with professionalism and a great sense of responsibility, to the enrichment of the educational and cultural panorama of children and adolescents. Coming from other professional areas, regardless of age (because imagination is patient), it was in the role of attentive and challenging parents that they consolidated the perception regarding the processes of promoting reading and writing: that they should be precocious, consistent and resilient, based on regular contact with high quality literary works and, whenever possible, with the authors themselves.

In 2012 Fábrica de Histórias began to «work» and in 2013 the first books were printed. In 2010, they opened a bookstore exclusively dedicated to literature for children and youth, where they welcomed artists from oral narration, music, theatre and the visual arts, and focused on creating moments of sharing with audiences composed mostly of families, always promoting contact with the word in its multiple dimensions. In 2013, they reaffirmed their mission as promoters of reading with the realisation of an itinerant cultural equipment project – the CABEÇUDOS Itinerante Bookstore, creating in loco multidisciplinary shows with cultural professionals. The CABEÇUDOS bookstore was recognised as a «Preferred Bookstore» in 2014, in an election promoted by the Portuguese Association of Publishers and Booksellers (APEL). In 2017, the Fábrica de Histórias expanded outside the national territory, with the Histórias Daqui e Dali project, the Fábrica de Histórias without Borders. Keeping the objective of promoting reading, writing and the arts, exchanges between school communities from different countries were joined.

Here, students share knowledge and experiences and gain a greater awareness of themselves and others, and contribute to bringing people together, promoting tolerance and multiculturalism. It also involved resident teachers at the schools, responsible for the subjects of mother tongue and foreign languages, visual education, technological education and social studies. From the beginning, Fábrica de Histórias has been awarded the LER+ seal, which was awarded to it by the National Reading Plan. Since 2017, it has obtained support from UNESCO for its projects and, since 2018, from the National Plan for the Promotion of School Success.

At the same time, it has received support, depending on the topics covered, from Turismo do Alentejo, the Portuguese Environment Agency, the Institute for Nature Conservation and the Commission for Gender Equality. Its launches already had the presence of Mayors, representatives of supporting institutions (UNESCO, PNL and PNPSE), State Ambassadors and representatives of cultural or humanitarian organizations.

In the end, books come out of the chimneys of this Factory that fly into the hands of their authors, their families, and their friends. They pass into the hands of other children, other young people, uncles and aunts, cousins, neighbours, people who live far away, grandparents and great-grandparents. And when someone doesn’t know how to read, these new authors with printed names say to them softly “I’m going to tell you the story I wrote”. Congratulations to all the authors who made, make and will make the Fábrica de Histórias.