Skip to main content

IOM urges West African youths to have hope in Sub-Region 


Ifeanyi Valentine 


The International Organisation for Migration (IOM), has urged West African youths not to lose hope in the region.

The call by IOM is sequel to the numbers of irregular youth migrants from the sub-region who go through the Sahara desert and the Mediterranean sea to seek greener pasture in Europe.

Speaking during an interactive session at the three-day Parliamentary Sensitisation Forum on Migration in West Africa held in Niamey, Republic of Niger, IOM Project Officer, Niger, Christina Atekmangoh, said from IOM's experience in the sub-region, migration seemed to be something really embedded in the socioeconomic life of West African young people.

Atekmangoh said: “For young people in the sub-region, it is not to lose hope because I think they are frustrated with so many things. They think that maybe life is always better out there.

“I think home is always home. It can be difficult, yes, but we can’t always think that migration is  the only passage to success. I think that there are other alternatives that we can try at home to also succeed back at home.”

Atekmangoh further enumerated areas such as school, small business enterprises, farming, mechanical work, carpentry, farming whereby youths in the sub-region can be engaged.

While noting that migration was not new in the sub-region, Atekmangoh added that the dynamics of migration have however changed.

She said in time past, people used to migrate from one country to another within the same region, but at the moment, migration had taken a different dimension whereby people migrate from one region to another.

Atekmangoh however said going by the changes in the migration dynamics, IOM had also changed its strategies in order to meet the challenge of migration in contemporary times.

“Like I said in my presentation, when IOM was opened in Niger more than five years ago, we didn’t have this activity of the assistance to migrants. We had other activities like developments and other issues,” she concluded.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Reject List From Countries In breach Of 30 Percent Women Representation – Njai Tells ECOWAS Parliament

A Gambian representative to the ECOWAS Parliament, Honorable Fatoumatta Njai has challenged the Community Parliament to reject list of countries that are short of thirty percent women’s representation to the Parliament. Speaking in an exclusive interview at the official Opening Ceremony of the Fifth Legislature’s delocalized meeting of the Joint Committee on Social Affairs, Gender and Women Empowerment / Education, Science and Culture/Health, currently holding in Monrovia, Liberia on the theme, “ Empowerment of Women in the ECOWAS Region.” Njai said that some countries lack female representation in the Conference of Bureau, this according to her is disregarding the ECOWAS Rules of Procedure. “The Rules of Procedures mentioned that each member country should have a female representation at the Conference of Bureau. Each country has three members in the Conference of Bureau, so each country can at least have one female member which will be thirty percent representation. I thin...
Post a Comment
Read more
ECOWAS Parliament pushes for immediate solutions to region's humanitarian crisis Lawmakers of the ECOWAS Parliament says its seeking to invoke its parliamentary powers to resolve the humanitarian crisis across region. This is following the report presentation by the Parliamentary Joint committee on Political Affairs, Peace and Security and APRM/Legal and Judicial Affairs, Human Rights, Protection of the Child and Vulnerable Groups on the security of the Region. As contained in the report, the political situation in the Republic of Guinea as well as the political and security situation in Mali among others, calls for serious attention most especially as it regards to pre and post-election situations, and which also arises from the preparedness level for the presidential elections that are planned in 2020.  Honourable Snowe Jnr of Liberia responding to the report said that there is an urgent need for the ECOWAS Parliament to utilize its power ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Deploy Technology for free and credible elections- Goodluck Jonathan challenge ECOWAS

Ifeanyi Valentine Nigeria’ s Former President, Dr.Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has called on the ECOWAS Sub region to utilize the possibility of technology in our electoral process so as to have free and fair elections. He said this while making his contribution as one of the panelists at the ongoing First Extra Ordinary Session put together by the Fifth Legislature of ECOWAS Parliament holding in Monrovia the capital city of Liberia. According to him the reason why citizens of the sub region often times lost confident in their leaders is because they believe the use the power of incumbency to manipulate the electoral system so as to continue to perpetuate themselves in power even at the detriment of the people. He said that if full technology is deployed in all the stages involved in the electoral process the elections will not only be free and fair but it will completely eliminate the manipulation and rigging of election results.’ “When technology is deployed across board you w...
Post a Comment
Read more