Last November, CD25A had the privilege of receiving a donation of part of her personal archive, the result of her work in the late 1970s and early 1980s at the Domestic Workers' Cooperative (Cooperserdo) and the Domestic Workers' Union.

Lieve Meersschaert, born in Belgium in 1945, trained as a psychologist at the University of Louvain. In 1971, she attended a course in Paris with the philosopher and educator Paulo Freire. In the context of her work with the Catholic Workers' Youth Association of Turnhout (Belgium) - KAJ-Turnhout, in 1976, in collaboration with KAK (Netherlands) and JOC Portuguesa, she organised solidarity actions that forced the payment of three months' back wages to 300 

workers at the Maconde clothing company. It was through this initiative, in contact with Base-Fut, that the opportunity arose to work at Cooperserdo, moving to Portugal in 1978, where he continued to work at the cooperative until 1985, during which time he also collaborated with the Domestic Service Union, namely in the preparation of the Domestic Workers' Congress, which took place on 28 October 1979. In this context, he also developed a training course consisting of eight sessions. Between October 1981 and February 1982, she wrote several chapters in Dutch about the SSD and Cooperserdo, which she did not publish at the time, but only in 2025 in her book entitled ‘Domestic Workers and Day Workers in Portugal: notes by Lieve Meersschaert’. In 1983, she interviewed 23 Portuguese domestic workers and in 1985 she was invited to present her work at the Colloquium ‘Women in Portugal’ on the role of domestic workers, which was eventually turned into an article and published in the magazine ‘Análise Social’.

Between July and January 1981, she worked full-time as a volunteer at Cooperseerdo - Cooperativa Operária de Serviço Doméstico (Domestic Workers' Cooperative). In 1982, she decided to settle in Cova da Moura (Amadora), a neighbourhood where she founded, in 1987, together with her husband, Eduardo Pontes, the Moinho da Juventude Cultural Association, created and based in her home. The association's scope of action is community development, promoting synergies, encouraging the sharing of skills and personal and group responsibility, with the mission: ‘Another world is possible if we want it’. In 2005, she was awarded the Order of Merit by the Portuguese government, which was presented to her by the then President of the Republic, Jorge Sampaio.

We will honour Lieve's memory and the important work she did by joining hands, practising collaboration and empathy.