Cape Verde People
Almost seventy percent of Cape Verde's people have combined black African and Portuguese ancestry. Most of the other people are Africans. The main language is Portugese. The people enjoy many secular celebrations throughout the year. There are also different types of religion on the islands.
Cape Verde has a low style of living, because all of it's people can't find good jobs. The country's leading businesses - farming and fishing - provide workers with only a small income. The economy has been really stable in recent years and is now set for amazing growth. You can also find out if you are interested in becoming a cape verde resident.
Starvation has happened often through the years. Many of the people are not well fed. Since the nineteen hundreds, hundreds of thousands of Cape Verdeans have traveled to Brazil, Portugal, the United States, and many other countries to escape the poverty of their country. Today it is different with all the money that is been put in to the country, the people and the country are better off.
The law requires children from the ages of seven through thirteen to go to school.
Sixty-five percent of Cape Verde's population knows how to read and how to write. The oldest most common age for women to live is until they are about sixty-nine years old. The age expectancy for men is only sixty-seven years old.
The overwhelming majority of the islands' population is Creole (mulatto), the descendants of early contacts between Portuguese settlers and Africans brought as slaves to work on the plantations in the 16th century. Among the latter, Fulani (Fula) and Mandingo people from the region of Senegal, The Gambia, and Guinea-Bissau predominated.
Issues facing children in Cape Verde
More than 80 per cent of births are not registered within the child’s first month of life, which is required by law. Children from poor households, especially girls, often drop out of school. Many of these children enter the labour market without training or skills and subsequently become unemployed.
One third of women and 17 per cent of men are illiterate. Just over 60 per cent of women have a primary school education compared to almost 70 per cent of men.
Education
The literacy rate in Cape Verde is about 70 percent, and the demand for primary and secondary education is 85 percent and 48 percent, respectively. Most professionals are college graduates with degrees from European and American universities. Total investment in education accounted for 12 percent of the country's estimated budget for the period 1992-1995.
Childrens Charity Work
A charity called SOS has two communities in Cape Verde. The first, SOS Children Assomada, opened in 1984 on the island of Santiago, the largest of the nine inhabited islands. The community, on the outskirts of the town of Assomada, is about 40 km from Praia, the capital of Cape Verde, and enjoys a superb view over the mountains. The ten family houses, and the youth house for older children about to embark on independent lives, are home to over 110 children.
The SOS nursery school has four classes and capacity for 100 children most of whom come from the surrounding area, where there are nursery facilities. The village also has a small clinic providing basic medical care for local people. Children from the village attend local schools.
SOS Children Sao Domingos was built in 2003. Also on Santiago, it is a few kilometres from Praia, on the side of a hill in the small village of Sao Domingos. Here there are eight family houses, painted in traditional colours, which are home to 80 children. The SOS nursery school has two classes and is used by 50 children from both the village and the local community.
See also the Cape Verdean Culture.