BOTNEM 32

Some African countries - MALI and NIGER, to name but two - have become transit countries par excellence for young people heading for the Maghreb countries and then on to the enclave of Ceuta and Melilla.
They have also become the main blocking countries for these young people, who number at least four thousand in the city of Bamako alone, and almost a thousand in the city of Agadez, coming from several countries, mainly from Central Africa, but mainly from Cameroon, DRC, Nigeria and Congo Brazzaville.

Most of these young people express the wish to return to their country of origin, and are occasionally taken in by the ICRC and IOM, who help them to return and sometimes to set up an income-generating activity in their country of origin. However, 90% of these experiences end in failure, as these young people are no longer familiar with their own country and have no training to help them complete such a process.

The creation of BOTNEM Espoir antenne Cameroun in 2019 and BOTNEM 32 in GERS in 2020 is highly relevant, because it is based on concrete and urgent needs, on the principle of the right to work, live at home or elsewhere with dignity. In some African cities, there are over a million young people aged between 17 and 25, with or without diplomas, no jobs and no prospects for the future. Unfortunately, they live off petty theft and are potential candidates for immigration, who will not hesitate to take the most dangerous routes, even if it means dying at sea or in the desert, because they no longer have any hope. The aim of our association is to give these people basic fundamental rights (education, decent housing, access to health care, a job) and, in the long term, to become actors in their own development, first in their country of origin, and why not in a host country, through vocational training sessions in very specific fields.

Our aim is to position ourselves downstream of a return process for people stuck in transit or host countries, thanks to our in-depth knowledge of the problems associated with the target group and our understanding of the issues surrounding the return of migrants, their integration and, above all, their willingness to become actors in their own development, in order to regain the trust of their families who reject them, not hesitating to point the finger at their failure.