The Vocational School of the Alto Minho is situated in the small town of Paredes de Coura in the North of Portugal, near the border with Galicia - Spain.

There are 350 students at our school this year and 46 teachers. The students and teachers take an active part in after school activities, however, more than one third of the pupils come from socially disadvantage backgrounds, so some of them can’t afford to visit theatres, concerts, exhibitions or go on excursions. For this reason, they have very little choice on how to spend their free time. We aim to prepare pupils for their future life using their free time and putting families, friends, surrounding society and school staff in general helping pupils selecting their future jobs from an early age so that teen's education is really complete, preventing school absence and premature abandon.

Pupils come to school from Paredes de Coura and more than 20 surrounding villages. Through the after-school activities they get the opportunity to enrich their cultural knowledge and get prepared to compete, in the future, when applying for a job.