Mission
The Center for African, Caribbean and Community Development (CACCD) is a university wide, interdisciplinary academically based program associated with the Africana Studies Department in the College of Liberal Arts that offers regional research programs in Africana Studies. The CACCD serves as a clearinghouse for public programs and lecture series; as a center for publications on African-Caribbean scholarship; and a locus for academic study and research on community development issues in the African Diaspora. The CACCD includes program initiatives such as the Health Education and Learning Program for Black Males (HELP), the Haitian Studies Program, the Journal of Haitian Studies (JOHS), the Creole Language and Culture Institute, and the Youth, Education and Sports (YES) with Africa Program, and the Martin Luther King Jr./ Amilcar Cabral Commemorative Program. The CACCD enriches our campus and community by creating a fertile intellectual environment, which enhances the relationship of African and Caribbean studies, culture, history and development to the broader fields of the humanities.
The CACCD is dedicated to providing world class research, education, and development programs targeted at the community level. Each of our programs plays an important role in supporting the CACCD mission. No matter whether focused on the Greater Boston region or the African continent, the CACCD provides development research data used by communities and agencies to make policy and programmatic decisions. Through praxis we seek to facilitate the empowerment of communities in the development process. The center also serves an important training role for students through their participation in our research activity and study abroad programs in Haiti, Jamaica, Cuba, Senegal, Cape Verde, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, and Dominican Republic.