With a passion for professional challenges and humanitarian causes, Sara Baptista started her professional life as a Pediatric Nurse in 2001. After a Master in Public Health and another in HIV/AIDS infection, she’s currently a PhD candidate in Parasitology. Meanwhile, she founded and organized a campaign to promote bone marrow donations by the African community worldwide— “Uma dádiva. Um Sorriso. Uma Vida. Dadores de Medula Óssea Cabo-Verdianos”-which was responsible for finding a compatible donor for a Cape- Verdean child desperately needing a transplant for more than 9 months.
Since its independence in 1975, Cape Verde has made a significant socio-economic progress. Cape Verde was the second African country after Botswana to leave the group of least developed countries and the population below the poverty line, from a reduction of 49 percent in 1980 to 25 percent in 2011. This achievement was only possible due to the strong governmental investment in basic infrastructures, in which the educational sector poised an active role. Cape Verde presents high literacy rates among 15-24 years old your (about 98%), while gender gap continues to reduce. However, despite these efforts, much remains to be done. Unemployment rate for the age cohort 15-24 is 41%, which means that almost half of youth who are in the labor market seeking work do not find jobs. Therefore, the ASW for Cape Verde 2018 aims to address the fundamental challenges for the development of Cape Verde economy also based on Youth STEM boost, where the contribution of the field to the country’s GDP is still negligible, as opposed to other African countries.
