Senegalese Migrants Funding Transformation back Home
Many left decades ago, but for thousands of Senegalese migrants thoughts still return to home -- where they are building communities and improving lives with new mosques, hospitals and schools.
Migrants from Africa have traditionally sent money home to keep nearest and dearest afloat, but Senegalese exiles are increasingly using remittances to build the economy and create jobs in the communities they left behind.
Traveling to the town of Matam in the far north, or Bakel in the east, one is struck by the large number of new mosques popping up, thanks to workers sending cash from Senegal's old colonial power, France.
Remittances from abroad have seen "many quantitative and qualitative changes", says Papa Birama Thiam, coordinator of the Franco-Senegalese "Support Program for Solidarity Initiatives for Development" (SPSID).
Migrants once sent cash to "solve problems of survival, livelihood", says Thiam, then they targeted "solidarity activities" before eventually beginning to fund infrastructure, and particularly mosques, he tells AFP.
Today, the diaspora "not only funds basic socio-economic needs, it is also involved in the financing of the national economy with the creation of business", he says.
Since 2005, SPSID has spent 32.4 million euros ($35.4 million), almost half provided by the French state but 42 percent coming directly from around 25,000 Senegalese migrant workers in France.
The cash has funded 60 schools, many equipped with libraries and computer rooms, educating some 20,000 students across Senegal, as well as health facilities for 292,000 people, hydraulic plants and a public records office.
AFP joined a recent tour organized by SPSID and the French Embassy of some of the areas in far-flung Senegal that have benefited from the scheme.
Residents of the eastern town of Diawara have a new water tower, while the northeastern city of Ourossogui has acquired a school that would not look out of place in more affluent parts of the capital, Dakar.
"The general philosophy of the program and its projects is without doubt to improve basic services to local populations... but also then employment opportunities," Jean Felix-Paganon, the French ambassador to Senegal, told AFP.
In Bakel, an abundant source of migrant workers near the Mauritanian border, young people talk happily about a vocational training center funded in 2011 by a French association of expats from the area.
"The town mayor told me that before, when the air conditioning broke down, they would have to go at least 250 kilometers (150 miles), 500 kilometers even, to get hold of a repairman," says Boubou Sakho, chairman of the association.
"They had to pay not only for the repairs, but also travel expenses. But for some time now, they have been able to call on the expertise of the center’s graduates," Sakho told AFP.
Mariam Diop, 22, a second-year civil engineering student, would never have been able to study abroad and says the center has provided opportunities on her doorstep that she could not otherwise have imagined.
"I prefer to study here and look for a job here, if possible," says Diop, who sees herself in five years "with a good job and earning well, God willing".
Dramane Kane, 20, from the nearby town of Golomi, has set his sights further afield and says he is studying so that he can "become a great electrician" somewhere overseas.
Demba Ka, chairman of the regional council in Bakel, acknowledges that there are people like Kane who will always harbor "vague desires" to embark on some grand adventure.
But he says Senegalese authorities and migrants themselves have made significant efforts to reduce the number of people leaving Senegal.
He talks about agricultural developments underway in the area, of infrastructure projects planned or already completed.
"Young people today have interesting opportunities to engage in productive activities, instead of thinking of emigrating," he says.
"It's not only just about telling them not to go -- that doesn't work -- they need opportunities," says Ka.
"Today, beyond even migration, it's the problem of youth employment that is the pressing issue."
The SPSID program is scheduled to end next year but its organizers are looking to extend its life with help from the European Union and France.
Source: Agence France Presse
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