WHAT WE DO
ACTIVITIES AND EVENTS
Public celebrations of history, culture, art and music, seminars that celebrate efforts toward social and racial equality, agricultural equity, updated farming practices, eliminating local food insecurity, while enhancing awareness of cultural cuisine through cooking classes, African quilting, music & language appreciation, documentary completion (a generous grant from Mass Humanities' "Expand Massachusetts Voices" will allow us to produce a documentary on "CV's in the Military with FCTV).
In 2023 we began lessons in Kriolu, Portuguese and English (in person and via Zoom), as well as an exciting "Sister School Project" between Prof. Zita Vieira's English Language Learners school in Praia, Santiago Island, Cabo Verde and Falmouth Public Schools through an exciting collaboration with the Institute for Cape Verdean Studies at Bridgewater State University 2023! Falmouth Elementary Schools youth and their teachers will again visit on field trips! Installation of an exhibit in the Cultural Center on Cape Verdeans in Sports begins in March 2023. Much, much more...join us, share a story or artifacts from your family heritage, or suggest a project, program or book signing!
On July 5th 2023, in addition to celebrating the Republic of Cabo Verde's 48th Independence, we hosted our fifth annual Reading Douglass / Amilcar Cabral - Falmouth, supported by a Mass Humanities Grant. The attendees were entertained by Candida Rose and the KabuJazz ensemble who we hope will be entertaining the greater Falmouth area this Spring at the Cape Symphony's Falmouth campus!!
As promised, we began an "Introduction to Our Language" class in October 2023 with the exceptional presentation by Prof. Joao Rosa, Bridgewater State University and the awesome collaboration between our museum staff, Angelo Barbosa, Director of the Pedro Pires Institute and his Assistant Sandra St. Laurent. They have partnered with Nezi Brito to bring a second Kriolu class to our Cultural Center in early 2024. It appears with this amazing "team" anything is possible!!
With three Kriolu classes under our belts by March of 2024, our Falmouth /ELL CV local "Sister School" team is now planning a trip to Praia, Cabo Verde in October of 2024 to meet with Prof. Zita Vieira, her staff and the students at the English Language Learning school ! As many of you know, we welcomed Zita to the Falmouth Community in the Spring of 2023 and met some of her remarkably talented students via Zoom. We can't wait to meet them and more in person!!
This spring we were honored to welcome the Bishop of Cabo Verde and his delegation, the President of Uni CV and the Director of the Dana Mohler-Faria School of English to visit our Museum and Cultural and discuss how the diaspora can help our ancestral homeland.
Meanwhile, we were contacted by a Kabuverdiano who works at the Boston College High School for assistance in designing a preliminary visit to our archipelago in support of planning a trip by their high school students to CVI in the Spring of 2025. CCCVMCC Treasurer Roy R. Rose, Jr. and Co-founder/Curator Barbara Monteiro Burgo will be traveling in June 2024 to Cabo Verde for a week to meet Angelo Barbosa, Director of the Pedro Pires Institute for Cape Verdean Studies and the BC High administrators to begin this new partnership! Viva Kriolus!!
COLLECTIONS AND RESOURCES
The Cape Cod Cape Verdean Museum & Cultural Center, Inc. has a collection of over 1,000 artifacts, related to Cabo Verde, Cape Verdean Americans and others throughout the Lusophone diaspora. These collections include photographs, biographies, books, drums, textiles, masks, popular and fine art, original historic documents, and genealogy resources.
THE EMERALD HOUSE
Our current physical home is at the Emerald House on Davisville Road in East Falmouth - a historic farmstead representative of Falmouth’s rich immigrant history where delicious strawberries were grown by a Portuguese Family and harvested with the assistance of early Cape Verdean immigrants. The museum & cultural center act as temporary stewards to the property and is grateful to the Town of Falmouth for leasing it to us as we help preserve this important legacy and collaboration.