Henri Le Boursicaud, former community leader at Emmaus Charenton in France, set off for Portugal where he gave numerous conferences, meetings and radio and TV interviews throughout the country in order to spread the word about the Emmaus movement. There he met Antonio Matos Pinho and Maria da Fé who, on his advice, set up Friends of Emmaus in Lisbon in 1983. With little means and in their free time, they collected unwanted goods and opened a small shop in the working class area of Chelas. Their social action firstly focused on supporting prisoners and homeless men, for whom they organised a Christmas meal at Rossio train station. The Emmaus community of Caneças, near Lisbon, opened in 1989.
