THE MY AVENIR PROJECT

The My Avenir project (“My future”) promotes schools in Africa aimed to orphaned children, offering them accommodation, subsistence and education until they finish studies of vocational training. In this way they wont need to travel to Europe in patera in search of opportunities to live.

The first school has been put in Togo; then others will come in other countries. My Avenir wants to contribute to ending the pateras and the drama of illegal migration.

THE SITUATION OF ORPHANS IN TOGO

They are mostly unwanted children born in the capital, Lomé. At birth they are abandoned in an indigenous village in the surroundings, which welcome and care for them until they turn 5-6 years. Then they return them to the capital and leave them. There are welcomed by gangs where they take refuge to protect themselves. Another group of orphans are children to whom misfortune has accompanied them after the death of their father.

Basically they have three alternatives: or delinquir to survive -they have to eat -, prostitution or enroll as a «soldier child» in a paramilitary army. Therefore, the option of leaving the country and risking the trip in patera to reach the coast of Europe is certainly attractive.

THE TRIP IN «PATERA»

But that trip implies crossing the desert with a multitude of risks (assaults, all kinds of vexations, precariousness), see how many of their travel companions die, and then, when they arrive in Europe, they suffer hunger, humiliations, racism, illegality… Many of them die in the attempt, crossing the desert or in the trip in patera itself. The mafias abuse them, deceive them telling them that as soon as they arrive in Europe they will have work and life resolved.

Upon arriving in Europe, as many of these children do not have any documentation that identifies them, legalization is impossible. Only a percentage less than 5% achieves its goal of inserting itself into the reception society.