“Celebrating International Monument and Site Day is to rethink and breathe new life into the country’s policies in the sector, the path that has been followed so far, the vision of the future and the awareness of citizens regarding the heritage of our people and our history,” the Minister of Culture, Manuel Veiga, said today in a communiqué released to mark the occasion.

It is within this framework that various sites and monuments are in the process of being recuperated and conserved as a part of Cape Verde’s program for the safeguard of built patrimony. Of particular importance are the project for the preservation of the Cidade Velha historic site near Praia, the Tarrafal concentration camp, the Palace of Culture and the so-called “Pink House” (now the headquarters of the International Portuguese Language Institute), all on the island of Santiago, as well as the National Handicraft Center building and former Port Authority headquarters on São Vicente, the house in which poet and composer Eugénio Tavares lived on the island of Brava, and many others.

Among the new projects planned by the Ministry of Culture are the recuperation and conservation of the house in which Amílcar Cabral, the hero of Cape Verde’s and Guinea Bissau’s independence movement, lived in Achada Falcão, Duqye de Bragança fort and the Rabil church on the island of Boa Vista, and the Alcatrazes historic site on the island of Santiago.

The Ministry of Culture also took the occasion to appeal to all citizens, “in the diaspora and in Cape Verde itself,” to make “the safeguarding and valorization” of the country’s historic sites and monuments “a national aim.”