Prevent Youth from Sacrificing Themselves to the Seas

It's no secret that high unemployment in many African countries has been a major factor in the massive migration of young people to Europe and the United States. Youth seek big jobs in big cities and many of those opportunities aren't available in their home countries. Unfortunately, this mass exodus has often resulted in very dangerous and often fatal trips through treacherous conditions in order to be smuggled across borders. In the last twenty years, more than 80,000 people have died trying to enter Europe by sea. Many migrants are lucky if they survive the journey and arrive at their destination, but there are still many who arrive only to face even harsher living conditions than they escaped in their home country, and still perish in vain.


In an attempt to curb the number of young Africans risking their lives to migrate abroad, the European Union has created an immigration center in Bamako, Mali. Its intention is not to be a recruitment center for Africans seeking employment, but rather a supportive and information center that will encourage migrants to move to Europe legally and educate them of the different types of vocational training that would be most useful in gaining them employment once they are able to migrate.

The establishment of the European immigration center is not the first effort to dissuade people from illegal and dangerous migration abroad. A Senegalese woman whose own son died while traveling by boat to the Canary Islands launched her own grassroots campaign a few years ago to educate those in her community about the dangers of small boat travel. She has seen her small fishing community transformed into a departure point for young West Africans traveling to Europe in small fishing boats.

The map below diagrams the path that travelers take throughout the various hubs and transfer points to make it to the northern and western shores of Africa and eventually Europe- usually by way of Spain or Italy.

One Spanish couple who was traumatized by the site of 37 dead Africans, killed by drowning while attempting to travel to Spain, decided to invest in Hansala, Morocco- the community that many of the dead migrants they found came from. They founded an NGO called Solidaridad Directa, that works to enable its citizens to build the capacity of Hansala and encouraged them to continue to develop their community rather than embarking on the often fatal migration to Spain.

Though the EU has sought an institutionalized solution to remedy this issue and many are launching grassroots campaigns to stop Africans from traversing the dangerous journey, it is impossible to ignore the disparities in this situation. Europe and Africa hold strong colonial ties that are still evident in European countries' (especially France) intervention during times political and economic strife on the continent. Europeans easily travel throughout Africa and often obtain their visas when they are entering the country. However, Africans are continually denied visas to Europe and thus their need to smuggle across borders in order to gain entry. Africans do not take boats because they are unable to pay airfare, many times these treacherous boat rides cost more than $1,000. They choose this method because that is their only hope of gaining entry into the country.

For centuries African nations have been exploited by Europe and continue to be. I believe that Africans need to set the same stipulations on entrance to their countries as Europe (and the US) has put on entering theirs. We can not continue to support such a lopsided relationship. We sadly even close our borders to our fellow Africans, but are quick to open them to foreign Europeans and Americans!

We need to work harder to create economic and social conditions within our countries that will dissuade young people from longing to fulfill their dreams abroad. Zebra Jobs, which I wrote about a few moths ago has launched their virtual job fair and I am impressed. It is now up to us to encourage our young people within the country and those that have migrated to to work in Africa and work towards building it rather than sacrificing their human potential to the seas.

The Hypocrisy Surrounding the Use of Child Soldiers

Let me preface this post by saying that I am completely against the use of child soldiers.

That being said, I can not continue to ignore the overwhelming hypocrisy surrounding discourse around the use of child soldiers throughout the world. The recruitment of young people in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America are constantly portrayed as involuntary conscription by rebels and other undisciplined violent factions. However, it is a fact that many young people join the army and non-formal militant groups because they feel they have not other options considering their socioeconomic condition. This is almost always the underlying grievance of militant groups who wage war.
But for some reason this phenomenon is never linked or compared to the recruitment of soldiers in the US. It is a fact that military recruiters go to impoverished and lower income areas in order to recruit young people, especially school drop outs of upcoming high school graduates with no prospect for the future. Is it not the same conception of a lack of resources and a bleak socioeconomic situation that spurs their interest in the army.
Of course I know age is always considered an issue, but in the US, tens of thousands of high school students are trained in ROTC programs starting at the age of 14 and then shuffled into the army after they graduate high school. Also, comparatively speaking young people in developing countries mature far faster than those in the US and may even become the head of their households or breadwinners in their families at 13 or 14. Recruitment into militant groups is seen as a better opportunity for them as it is seen as one for young American soldiers.
I would say that a grave difference is the benefits that American soldiers receive, but considering the number of homeless veterans in the US, I no longer deem it fair to even make that argument.
Ultimately, I think that it is very important to stop isolating issues that exist abroad, especially in developing countries. The best way to solve issues is to analyze them comparatively and apply lessons learned. The recruitment and conscription of young people into armed factions is not due to desire, but a lack of more favorable opportunities. Perhaps, we should focus our efforts on making these opportunities available for young people discouraging and preventing those who are more vulnerable from being conscripted and recruited.

Relevant Post

I Couldn't Have Said It Better, Myself!

I come from a family or farmers. For those who know me, this is definitely hard to believe considering, I am not the "agricultural" type. That's because I don't actually know how to farm, I just come from a family of them. Almost all of my family lives in Cameroon in a rural village and farms for a living. At least, they are supposed to. This is the dilemma. The new generation of children who are at the brink of their adult life do not want to be farmers. They have all moved into the city seeking jobs. But the problem is, there are none. So many of them have either completed school and have useless degrees or have dropped out of school in hopes of finding a job. Either way, they're almost all unemployed. I'm not sure who should take the blame for this issue, but I do know that if I grew up in an agricultural community and country without many job prospects, I would probably focus on farming.
Apparently, the King of Buganda, Kabaka Ronald Mutebi II, agrees with me! There is a great deal of idleness among youth in developing African nations, who move from their rural hometowns to the urban city centers, in search of jobs that don't exist. Once they realize they won't be getting employed anytime soon, they stay in the centers and usually turn to a life of idleness or crime.
I had a friend in Kampala, who realized the gold in the rural areas and hired workers to farm for him! It was a lazy, but smart move.
However, considering today's food crisis, the lack of farmers in predominantly agricultural societies is alarming. It makes no sense for countries with soil meant for growing, who were exploited by the West centuries ago, to be relying on the West to export items that they are equipped to grow themselves in abundance!
I think a healthy medium for youth uninterested in getting their hands dirty on the farm, would be for them to explore scientific ways to make farming easier.

Don't All Inner City Youth Face the Same Challenges?

My mother and I have taken to sponsoring children in and out of our family who are struggling to pay school fees due to social ills that have trapped them in a life of dire poverty.
About a year ago, I considered making our personal service large scale and creating a program that would provide scholarships to children in conflict zones in Africa who are willing, but unable to attend secondary school because they can no longer pay their school fees. The children I was interested in targeting are those in Northern Uganda, who end up leading a life of vagrancy or joining the army because they see no other way to lead their lives. Discourse surrounding this issue usually characterizes these children as victims to their society and left with no other alternative. The Northern Ugandan region is filled with NGOs working frantically to rescue these youth from their wayward or dangerous lifesytles, so that they can be educated and possibly face a more promising future.
I put this project on hold, mostly because even though I still have a passion to helping impoverished children and youth, I have taken more of an interest in urban cities. And as I've explained with my experience with Tony, I empathize even more with children who are living in city centers, surrounded by affluence and opportunity, but are not afforded the opportunity to benefit from the development around them.
Since my return to the US, I have thought about the affinity I have grown towards helping urban slum youth and American NGOs, who flock overseas war torn regions, preventing youth from being conscripted into the army and rebel factions, and wonder why the same sentiments are not directed towards youth in American slums, who join gangs.
Youth gang members are almost always characterized as perpetrators of violence, victimizers, and more importantly terrorizers of their community. Encouraging them leave their lifestyle is a task usually relegated to former gang members. Other citizens are terrified of this group and wouldn't dare approach them, even on the grounds of reform.
I wonder, why the images of these two youth are seen so differently. They both kill, steal, and participate in violent acts in their community. They recruit other youth and reject most societal norms. But why are the African children viewed as helpless and conscripted into their lives of violence and left without other viable options for self-development, while American youth are viewed as willing terrorizers, who choose to follow lives of crime and dangers to society, who usually can't be saved?

The Boys of Baraka

Most people know about my affinity for Netflix. I rarely watch television. I just queue DVDs and watch movies (cuz Im not found of going to theatres), catch up on shows (cuz like I said, I rarely watch tv), and watch documentaries (netflix has got a great selection). So last night I watched The Boys of Baraka. This is a must see film for all black males, anyone concerned with the plight of black children, or anyone who doesnt understand the conditions facing poor children in America.
As the blurb reads: "In an experimental program to reduce the rate of juvenile delinquency, the city of Baltimore sent a group of 12-year-olds deemed "at risk" to a boarding school in Kenya, affording the boys the rare opportunity to turn their troubled lives around. Focusing on four of the youths, this compelling documentary follows the students as they struggle to overcome the obstacles of their past in their hopeful bid for a shot at a brighter future."

With as much exposure as I've had to inner city youth and scholarly research I've done on their plight, this documentary still revealed a great deal to me. I am still unable to fathom the fact that in order to face a brighter future, these young men are taken out of the streets of Baltimore and taken to Kenya. The educational system in most of sub-saharan Africa though rigorous is severely lacking in resources. However, these boys ended up learning in one year in Kenya more than they did throughout years of schooling in Baltimore city schools. I was also impressed by the level of determination the children showed. They were aware that their environments were conducive to failure and were willing to move to a completely foreign environment in order to better themselves. I found many of the children to be smarter than their parents, who were not working nearly as hard as their sons to improve their quality of life.

However inspiring this film was for me, it was still troubling in many ways. I was disappointed that though the Baltimore recruiter for the Baraka school was a black woman, all but one of the teachers, counselors, and administrators of the program were white. These boys were in need of more than educational and psychological counseling. They needed to see Black men as role models encouraging them to make it because they had as well. This was lacking in the program and is lacking overall in most communities. Most of the boys did not have their father's or even other males in their households and this most definitely has an effect on their outlook of their future.

Overall, this is a great documentary and everyone needs to see it.