Mission

In our endeavors to emphasize on community involvement, Cape Verdean organizations have come together in an effort to send much needed educational supplies to Cape Verde. We are proud to participate in what is known as the Edgar Barros Bidon Project. The Cape Verdean Alumni Network, along with a number of organizations from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Boston, and Dartmouth, Northeastern University, Rhode Island College, Boston College, and Pine Manor College have collaborated on this project.

The Bidon Project is named in honor one of its outstanding Cape Verdean members, Edgar Barros. Edgar was one that felt he had to give back to the community and he constantly found ways of promoting the Cape Verdean culture. He instilled in many the sense of pride for the Cape Verdean culture. He wanted to help out not only the Cape Verdeans in the United States, but also the ones back at home in Cape Verde. Thus it was only right to honor him through this project.

The word Bidon is Cape Verdean Creole for barrel. The barrels are used to transport goods to the islands of Cape Verde. Our intentions are to fill as many bidons with school supplies and send them to schools that are in need of these items to include books, notebooks, paper, pencils, pens, etc.

Our primary goal is to provide as many Cape Verdean students as possible the tools necessary to obtain a better education. Many young people cannot attend schools because their families don’t have the basic resources. In addition, the school systems in Cape Verde are very poor and as a result of low funding from the government. Many school systems cannot afford simple supplies such as paper or pencils. An overwhelming majority of the population of the archipelago is monolingual and while all members of the population speak and understand Cape Verdean Creole, there is a high illiteracy rate, especially among the age group of 25 years and older. Since the inception of the project, the EBBP has sent many bidons to several schools on the islands of Fogo and Santiago. One of our goals is to send bidons to all of the islands.