Museum of the Person (Museu da Pessoa) aims to document life stories, with the idea that every life story is a part of history and leads to better understanding between peoples and cultures. The virtual museum project was founded in São Paolo in 1991 and so far museums have been created in Brazil, Portugal, USA and Canada.

On the site we can see stories of ordinary Brazilians, such as André Fodor, who was born to a Brazilian / Italian mother and Hungarian father. After growing up in Brazil he went to university in the USA, later coming back to Brazil with an American bride to help his father with his confectionary business. Many of those interviewed were born outside Brazil, or have ancestors of different nationality, reflecting the high level of immigration to Brazil over the last 150 years.

As well as collecting a fascinating repository of stories and information, the project has been very innovative in using multimedia to record life stories. Let´s hope they are able to collect many more stories from people in different places as the project continues to grow.

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About the author

Lucy is English and first ventured out of the UK she was 19. Since then she has lived in 4 different countries and tried to see as much of the world as possible. She loves learning languages, learning about different cultures and hearing different points of view.