(JollofNews) – Authorities in the Gambia will this month organise a national youth camp to sensitise and discourage young people from clandestine migration to Europe.
The Gambia is one of the West African countries with the highest number of clandestine migrants who travelled by trucks and buses to Libya, where they are trafficked on overcrowded boats to Spain and Italy.
The youth camp is the latest among a series of plans put in place by the authorities to discourage youths from taking the back way.
According to Baboucarr Jabbie, chairman of Operation No Backway, they want to bring together 600 young people across the country as illegal migration is phenomenal in the country.
“Young people are venturing into it and young people are the cream of society,” he told the Dakar-based West Africa Democracy Radio.
“That is why we felt it is necessary to bring together young people across the country to talk about issues affecting us as young people. If there is a way forward we can go by that but this illegal migration I believed is not the solution.”
Meanwhile, EU foreign and interior ministers are due to meet in Luxembourg to discuss the deaths of migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean from Africa.
Some southern European nations say the EU’s credibility is now at stake after last year’s decision to scale back search and rescue efforts.
On Sunday, hundreds are believed to have drowned after their boat sank off the coast of Libya.
The UN says the North Africa-Italy route has become the world’s deadliest.
It is sad to see these young people perish for nothing. It really don’t worth losing your life Migrating to these countries with their own economic problems and large number of youth unemployment. Even though you manage and lucky to arrive safe into these countries, how do you expect to survive? It is expensive to survive in these countries and most of their citizens managed evry month to survive with either a minimum wage job or welfare. You will be very lucky to even get unsurvivable minimum wage job. Rent, food, clothing, medicines and other daily survival needs are expensive, and you will not be able to afford them. You will soon see yourself homeless and hungry in these mean streets, and regret why you migrated. Don’t you think you are better off at home and struggle with the family to survive?
Life is not easy in these countries as you may thought. You will still struggle to survive even if you are very lucky to get a better paying job. Even with a better paying job you cannot get immediately, it will take you 20-25 years to do anything decent back home—-provided you are lucky enough.
I think a heavy investment in attractive agriculture for young people would eventually discourage the massive youth migration. These young people are discourage from involving in agricultural production because they see their grandparents and parents doing a back breaking traditional subsistence farming for decades with nothing to show for it. Make agriculture a lucrative clean modern practice that would encourage these young people to be farmers and reduce youth unemployment. Many ways to create community development and help reduce youth unemployment.
It is alarming to see the high rate of disenfranchised and unemployed Gambian youth. It is wonderful to empower the young Gambians to realized their earning potential and contribute to their communities and national economies. Make sure education is available and accessible to all the youth. Let these young Gambians access to good skills training and entrepreneurship training with access to credit. Agriculture can also be developed by making it attractive for young Gambians.