http://events.takingitglobal.org/21977/blogs/# What's on the minds of young leaders from around the globe? en-us http://events.takingitglobal.org/21977/blogs/#655739
“As soon as I finish high school I will go there, because I have nothing to stay for in Somaliland,” he said, adding that his parents could not afford university fees and he was not assured of a place even if they could.

Yusuf has many friends who have made the journey - first through Ethiopia, then Sudan and Libya and finally to Italy via the Mediterranean Sea - and are now living as illegal immigrants in Italy and other European nations. He also has many friends languishing in Sudanese or Libyan jails, arrested for entering the country illegally, and knows of many who died making the trip, but he remains determined.

Tens of thousands of Somalis also try to cross the Gulf of Aden into Yemen every year aboard small vessels run by people-traffickers operating from Somali ports; according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), one out of every 20 people attempting the journey in 2007 died.

Yusuf says he would rather risk death than live a life of certain poverty in Somaliland.

Unemployment

“The issue of young people running away is very problematic in Somaliland,” said Omer Ali Abdi, the director of the youth department in the Ministry of Youth and Sports. “Year after year, graduates from secondary schools are increasing and our universities just don’t have the capacity to take in all of them - and even when they graduate from university, there is no guarantee they will get a job.”

According to Ahmed Hashi Abdi, vice-minister in the Ministry of Planning and Coordination, only 10-20 percent of people under 35 are employed.

“Because it is unrecognised internationally, Somaliland has no access to bi-lateral funding, which has caused our economy to suffer, especially after the livestock ban of 1999, which destroyed the main source of income of most of our people,” Abdi said. “For the same reason, international scholarships and higher education exchange programmes are not open to our students.”

An outbreak of Rift Valley Fever in Saudi Arabia in 1999 resulted in a regional ban on imported livestock from Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Kenya, and Djibouti; the ban on Somalia remains in place and now includes several other Middle Eastern nations.

After the ban, remittances became the main foreign exchange earner; thousands fled the country during an outbreak of war in 1988, and regularly send money to their families. The Ministry of Planning estimates remittances account for US$500 million - or about 80 percent of Somaliland’s economy.

“When people leave the country legally, we are happy that they are able to send back money, but as much as possible we try to discourage young people from leaving illegally - then it becomes a matter of life and death and we cannot encourage that,” Abdi said.

Despite the risks, many families scrimp and save to send their children on these journeys. Over the past year, Amina Rooble (not her real name) has spent more than $6,500 on transport, communication, paying traffickers and bribing prison officers, all in an effort to get her son Hashim to Italy.

Although his boat sank, Hashim survived and is now seeking asylum in Italy. “Even though my son was rescued, two other members of my family died on that boat,” Rooble said.

Incentive to stay

The government and local NGOs have run campaigns to discourage young people from leaving, but according to Yahye Mohamoud Ahmed, head of the Somaliland National Youth Organisation NGO, unless the government can provide some motivation, young people will continue to escape in droves.

“They have no incentive to stay - no jobs and no businesses, so it is fairly futile to tell them to stay,” he said. “They need to be given the capacity to feed themselves here.”

Ahmed added that many young men were now taking swimming lessons and using hi-tech communication equipment - such as satellite telephones to make SOS calls - to make their trips safer.

“When they hear about their friends and relatives in London or Italy, they get encouraged to go; even when their relatives have no jobs there, they still think they have a better life than here,” he added.

According to Ahmed Abdi, the national development plan includes the creation of two vocational training institutes in every region of Somaliland to boost the number of tertiary institutions and the variety of courses available.

“We also intend to set up micro-finance schemes to enable them to be self-supporting,” he added.

He noted that despite the continued livestock ban, a few countries in the Arab world were starting to buy Somaliland’s meat, and the government hoped the Saudi ban would be lifted, restoring the industry.

Youth policy

The Ministry of Youth and Sports, in partnership with the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), is drafting a national youth policy - due to be passed by parliament in 2011 - that hopes to address issues of youth emigration, unemployment, education and political participation.

“What we need more than anything is resources from our international partners focused on development rather than strictly emergencies - resources focusing on education and building the economy would encourage young people to stay and build their own nation,” the Ministry of Youth’s Abdi said.
]]> Sun, 03 May 2009 06:20:00 EDT http://events.takingitglobal.org/21977/blogs/#655739 9.5833333 44.06666679.583333344.0666667 http://events.takingitglobal.org/21977/blogs/#564977 Live Chat just before the holidays on Youth Migration, which turned out to provide an interesting portrait of just what youth are facing when they attempt to take advantage of the 'shrinking world' and 'increasing connectivity' we're all meant to be benefiting from as a consequence of globalization. If the sarcasm in that last sentence wasn't obvious then I should explain that what we all understood from the portrait drawn by our speakers of Youth Migration in our day and age was that it is not necessarily made easier by 'globalization' and that it is in fact often a dangerous, disappointing and victimizing experience.

Migration is one of those issues that is especially relevant to youth but for some reason is not readily recognized as a youth issue, or is not often associated with youth when it is discussed at higher levels. Migration is a youth issue because youth are the largest group affected by, participating in and victimized by migration. It is similar in this way to an issue like HIV/AIDS, which is affecting youth more than anyone else, and yet youth are so often left out of the processes and policies addressing it.

Youth decide to migrate to another country for countless reasons - education, work, living conditions, etc - and you might think that now it must be easier than ever for this to happen. Thanks to new communication technology youth are more aware than any other generation of what is going on in the world around them, the internet lets us learn about opportunities in distant places and increasing international travel makes it more likely that we can get to those opportunities. I think most of us will have heard at one time or another how globalization and communication technology are bringing us all closer together and breaking down the geographical, political and technological barriers that used to separate us - right?

The opposite is happening for the majority of youth migrants. What we learned during the Live Chat is that globalization has created new barriers to keep people out, rather than breaking down the old ones. It seems that the greater connectivity globalization has created amongst economies and industries has increased the dangers of migration, because it has narrowed the channels for legal migration, therefore forcing more and more youth to attempt illegal migration. The global free market economy, Naomi Onaga (Director of Migrants Rights International) explained, makes keeping certain people in their countries working for low wages attractive and therefore channels for legal migration narrow except in the case of temporary labourers. Temporary labourers are denied citizenship, job freedom, and residency. They become vulnerable to abuse by employers because of this. The type of low-wage labour they are allowed to participate in means that they will bring little skill or knowledge back to their native communities.

It all makes for a pretty bleak picture, made worse by the dangerous journeys ahead of those who attempt to illegally migrate. Migrants - most often youth - are drowning while attempting to cross from North Africa to Spain or Italy, dying in the desert attempting to enter the USA, or are becoming victims of forced migration. If they make it to their destinations they will likely be greeted by a population that is mostly hostile to them, and sees them as dangerous.

The whole discussion had a special relevancy for me, because I will soon be a migrant myself. Leaving Canada for an overseas opportunity, but I'm lucky, because I will be migrating legally, will enjoy all of my rights and be relatively safe while doing it - or as safe as anyone can expect to be on an international flight these days. The Live Chat really sharpened those inequalities that mean that I will be able to take advantage of an opportunity in a different country, and others will face nothing but misery for trying to do the same.

To try and not end on a bad note, there are those working towards international recognition of migrants, more opportunities for legal, safe migration and, maybe most importantly, opportunities for work, education and a better life for youth in their home countries and communities. These people include the speakers who took time out of their busy schedules on December 18 - International Migrants Day - to join our Live Chat.

The biggest hurdle of all might be to change people's perception of migration and migrants themselves. I thought the image above was a great way to think about that issue. Of course, technically refugees and migrants are considered to be in different categories, but I think it speaks to the same fear of foreigners, immigrants, migrants or refugees being 'dangerous' or 'bad'. In fact, communities that welcome these people and make the best use of their skills benefit from them. Einstein is a pretty good example.

These are the organizations that supported our Live Chat on Youth Migration:

Migrants Right International
December 18
Young People We Care


]]> Wed, 07 Jan 2009 13:43:00 EST http://events.takingitglobal.org/21977/blogs/#564977 43.6666667 -79.416666743.6666667-79.4166667