Carol Castiel
My blogs
| Gender | Female |
|---|---|
| Industry | Communications or Media |
| Location | United States |
| Introduction | I am director of Current Affairs Programming at the Voice of America. I host Press Conference USA and Encounter and oversee Issues in the News. Prior to joining VOA, I was a consultant and free-lance journalist specializing in the promotion of trade and investment between the US and Africa. From 1984 to 1991, I managed scholarship programs for Portuguese-Speaking Africa at the African-America Institute in NYC. It was through my students from Cape Verde that I learned about the islands' Jewish heritage. Many grantees bore Jewish surnames such as Levy, Benchimol or Wahnon. Over the past 20 years, I have been working on documenting the Jewish presence in Cape Verde. In late 2007, I founded the non-profit 501(c)(3) organization: "Cape Verde Jewish Heritage Project, Inc." a legal entity that allows us to raise funds to restore and preserve the 4 poignant Jewish cemeteries in Cape Verde and to research and document the presence of the Jews, most of whom hail from Morocco and Gibraltar in the mid-19th century. I have traveled widely in Africa and am fluent in Portuguese, French and Spanish. |
| Favorite music | Cape Verdean, Latin |
| Favorite books | Man's Search for Meaning |