The Use of Job Creation Initiatives to Restore Confidence and Dignity

The Center for Research and Action for Peace (CERAP), formerly known as the African Institute for Economic and Social Development (INADES), has been working since its creation in 1962 to promote integral development. Its vision is to work in favor of all human beings, to participate in the construction of a peaceful society, reconciled with itself, more just and respectful of human dignity. In this perspective, CERAP is a Jesuit apostolic instrument to discern the social challenges of each era in order to meet them to the best of its means. Today, employment, youth and migration are major social problems; CERAP responds in its way through socio-professional training and professional integration, support for job creation, training of civil society organizations working on migration, and advocacy on various issues related to employment and migration.

Restoring the Dignity of Youth through Training and Socio-Professional Integration

With 59 percent of the 24.7 million Ivorian population under the age of 24, it is clear that one of the major challenges for this young population is employment. Although the Ivorian economy, like most other African economies, has progressed steadily over the past decade, the job opportunities created in the formal sector are not sufficient to absorb the high number of young people entering the workforce each year. The consequence is that a large proportion of young, able-bodied people find themselves unemployed or in low-paying jobs. This precarity invites, if not greatly increases, the temptation to emigrate in search of a job in order to be able provide for oneself and one's family.

Interviews conducted in Abidjan with some young people tempted by irregular emigration reveal that the desire which animates many is to make themselves useful and help their loved ones. This is the case of Mamadou, a 32-year-old of Malian origin who lives in Abidjan; his big sister managed to thwart his irregular plan to follow one of his friends to Spain. Mamadou explains that he had "tried all the odd jobs but could not survive" and was ashamed to have to ask for help. "I had the feeling of being cursed here in Ivory Coast ... I felt useless ... I did not even want my friends to see me ... It's only my big sister who helped the family while a big boy like me could not do anything to support the family ... So, for two years, I struggled to put aside a small sum to try my luck elsewhere ... But Allah acted and things have gone differently."

Mamadou's experience is shared by many young people who, for lack of decent work, feel "useless" and are now struggling to make sense of their existence — situations which make them lose awareness of the dignity of their own human lives. In this context, CERAP works alongside several other structures to restore the dignity of young people in need of jobs and in situations of vulnerability. As such, the experience of Social Action in Urban Areas (ASMU), one of CERAP's services, is particularly relevant. Each year, around 350 young men and women aged between 14 and 25 receive socio-professional training there. They are entrusted to owners of small businesses and craft workshops where they learn a trade such as sewing, mechanics, hairdressing, tapestry, pastry making, shoe repair, electricity, photography, etc. Their apprenticeships last for at least three years. As well as learning their trade, these young apprentices and their bosses receive guidance in technical and human capacities in order to become reconciled with themselves, skilled in their trades and also to behave more humanely and generously towards others, thus contributing to a more just and humane society.

Thanks to financial partners like MISEREOR (German Catholic Bishops' organisation for development cooperation) and HUBEJE (mission office of the Jesuits in Belgium) and local foundations, CERAP accompanies each young apprentice individually, and in the second year of training offers them the necessary equipment to continue their training in their workplaces and acquire a small job income. At the end of their training, these young people can then continue their development with their former master craftsperson or open their own workshop with a repayable loan granted by CERAP. In turn, they become job creators for other disadvantaged people. The testimonies of the beneficiaries of the ASMU program of training and socio-professional insertion show that beyond the acquisition of a profession and the ability to take care of themselves, it is fundamentally their dignity that has been restored. They now have their place in society; they have a clearer sense of who they are and where they are going. Although such initiatives are modest, given the very limited number of beneficiaries in relation to the vast needs, they offer a glimmer of hope and a sign that problems can be solved if everyone shows goodwill and puts in real commitment.

Restoring Confidence through Support for Job Creation

In addition to its involvement with young people and underprivileged segments of the population through the ASMU, CERAP is also committed to the elite and best-educated social and socio-professional strata. The Institute of Dignity and Human Rights (IDDH), CERAP's university institute, supports people who have job creation projects through an MBA program in Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Development — a two-degree program between CERAP and Sacred Heart Catholic University in Milan, Italy. Its goal is to train entrepreneurs who will either create or expand their businesses. The positive experience of this program, which attracts participants from several African countries, shows that the private sector can develop in the Ivory Coast via the efforts of Ivorians themselves who, in turn, will be able to offer decent jobs instead of continuing to rely heavily on the State to create public jobs. This MBA program in Entrepreneurship only accepts 25 participants per year. Certainly symbolic, it is nevertheless a powerful parable on the migratory question being addressed to both Africans and Westerners.

For Africans, this program aims to convince graduates in all walks of life who have graduated from the best schools and universities and are tempted to go to work in Europe and the Americas that it is possible not only to find work in the Ivory Coast and Africa but, much better, to start their own businesses and to offer work to a large proportion of idle youth. African entrepreneurs who are tempted to go and live in the West receive the same message: that it is possible to develop their businesses and deal with foreign companies. The ultimate goal is for Africans to regain their confidence in their own ability to create jobs and thus contribute to making the continent a place where people will no longer need to take disproportionate risks in order to emigrate to other continents.

For Westerners, the MBA program in Entrepreneurship implicitly denounces immigration policies which plunder the best-trained and most competent African human resources, resulting in the brain drain of people who should have remained in Africa and contributed effectively to job creation, thus reducing the problem of irregular immigration to Europe. Indeed, if Europe and North America continue to attract the most skilled Africans, they should no longer complain of receiving too many Africans seeking employment on their soil; they are complicit in the phenomenon of immigration. Thus, to reduce African employment and immigration outside the continent, it is imperative for the best-trained African elites to put their skills into creating jobs for the continent's young people. In this sense, the brain drain is a migratory problem as important as the flight of disadvantaged young people braving the desert and the sea trying to reach Europe.

Training NGOs and Other Civil Society Organizations Working in the Migration Sector

CERAP is also involved in training NGOs and other civil society structures including several organizations working in the field of income-generating activities and in the fight against irregular immigration. For example, at the request of the European Union, CERAP has mapped the civil society organizations working in the Ivory Coast on migration issues. Workshops were organized with these structures to review their weaknesses, strengths and opportunities in the field of migration. These NGO initiatives have been identified and their impact evaluated, as has also been done for NGOs working in the field of youth and job creation. These empirical studies allow us to better understand the dynamics of unemployment, emigration and immigration in the Ivory Coast in order to propose appropriate solutions. They generally set the stage for advocacy or well-informed programs on various issues related to employment and migration.

Conclusion

Through its various initiatives, CERAP aims to restore the confidence of the men and women affected by its action and thus work to restore their human dignity. It intends to realize this vision by creating its own Institute of Dignity and Human Rights, thus counteracting the mediatization of the migration issue that transmits the image of the migrant as a criminal.

Behind the migration problem is a human problem that we cannot reduce to a safety issue. When all are willing to discover the human dignity behind the migrant that claims to be recognized and respected, when we realize that the migrant is one of us, a human being like us who is part of the same human family, then we will see the question of migration in new terms. In all situations involving humans, we must treat them with respect, because we are dealing with the sacred!