Reduce Irregular Migration
Project Summary
The principal objective of this initiative is to align with national development goals aimed at mitigating illegal migration originating from the Amhara Region. This will be accomplished by fostering awareness among youth and local communities, enhancing the quality of education, and decreasing the school dropout rate, particularly in the North-East sector of Ethiopia. The project seeks to facilitate behavioral change regarding drug addiction among students while addressing the essential material deficiencies faced by students from extremely impoverished families. By supporting these individuals in their educational pursuits, the initiative aims to empower them to realize their aspirations and contribute positively to society.
Case/Human Stories
Meet the woman who says, “… the project has to work towards the eradication of illegal migration rather than reducing it for I had been there myself…”
Ansha Sherif Ahmed, a mother of two, a girl and a boy, four and two years, respectively, had left her kids and her home country, Ethiopia, Amhara Region, when she was 20 to follow the footsteps of her fellow friends. Her friends flee their country illegally, as it has been customary for girls to flee their homes at early ages and even lower than that in search of a better life abroad. Ansha had grown up in a family of 10 by being the sixth child and the first female in the family, where everybody cared for and adored her and even treated her as if she was the flower of the family while the family was the pot comforting the flower. Ansha used to aspire to a life wherein she would be the academician of her big and trade family, whereby everybody engaged in the family’s small and traditional business. Ansha aspired to attain a university degree, secure a respectable job in her community, marry her beloved, and raise affectionate, healthy children who would bring joy and energy to her home, just as she once did in her youth. Her goal was to fill her parents’ house with love and happiness.
She seemed to enjoy that path of her wished life after she joined her nearby elementary school in the very early years of her schooling at ‘Lafto kebele’ of Kemissie town. Kemissie is found some 328 km away from the capital city, Addis Ababa, in the NE part of Ethiopia and 50 km south of Kombolcha town, where the project implementation office resides.
Lafto kebele is one of the 6 kebeles in Kemissie town with a total population of 10,280 (26% of the town population) located in the NW part of the town. Ansha’s kebele, like almost all kebeles in the town, relies on the remittance they erratically found from their family members abroad and from very small traditional businesses like that of Ansha’s family, which struggled to keep their families intact.
Picture 1: Picture showing Ansha, a Returnee, sharing her story of Illegal Migration
Ansha’s enjoyable life did not last long following her unexpected failure in the national grade ten examination, which was also a reality for many of her friends by then. Following this tragic event in her life, Ansha tried her best to get any employment opportunity in the local government offices, which were considered the only option of employment opportunities that fit her education, while most of her peers automatically chose to flee their country illegally.
Ansha managed to withstand the pressures that arose from the local illegal brokers who presented the lives of her pre-migrated friends as a haven and those of a few friends of hers who managed to cross the border after so much suffering, though they preferred not to tell her how they suffered to reach out there. Ansha kept on struggling to get some kind of job and even any job that would help her live her own life independent of her family.
However hard she tried to get a job, any job that merely kept her alive, let alone supported her big family, her efforts were in vain. This situation took her away and made her believe that she had lost her life compass, and this feeling lined her up among those who were leading their lives in despair with their families, especially hers, that of a bigger family.
As a way out of her despair in life, Ansha decided to get married to one of her fellow villagers, from whom she got two kids. Little did she knew that the marriage was not to serve her purpose to stay out of her family support and even she didn’t had the slightest idea as to how soon the marriage could possibly had dissolved and made her life more complicated.
Picture 2: Picture showing Feruza Hussen, the Project Officer, Taking Ansha’s Story
“My life,” Ansha said, “seemed to be filled with unexpected unfavorable conditions as far as things were going with me by then … “in a very heartbroken manner. “This was the situation and the time I had given in living in my country and decided to flee abroad and support my fatherless kids for he declined to support them after the divorce. Following the divorce, Ansha had gone to Saudi Arabia for a two-year contract. Her trip abroad was with a scheme people consider legal, but as soon as her leg touched Saudi Arabia, her employers snatched her passport. What made things worse was that she was told that she would be paid less than she had signed on for at the onset of the trip back home. These forced her to live as an illegal without her documents, which made her feel in reality as if she was serving her ‘Madam’ as a slave each day of the entire two years, to which she advised herself to conform with it day by day so that her kids will be alleviated from daily hunger. Once she finalized her term, she came back home with almost no money, for she had been supporting her kids and her family with whom her kids were staying.
Once again, life kept on going for Ansha, her kids, her family, and everybody else, but for Ansha, it was too much to keep supporting her kids, one of whom needed to start elementary schooling and the other kindergarten.
There is no way for Ansha to earn and support her kids except to go abroad and work as a maid wherever it may be and whatever way she gets there. The issue with her this time was that she had no money and nobody to help her migrate, like her parents, who helped her out on her previous trip abroad. Her only hope of support this time was her old school friend, who gave her word once Ansha found the way to how she could flee illegally, for the legal contractual pay as a maid is much lower than the illegal one.
During this time, illegal migration local brokers already contacted Ansha and she linked him to a friend of hers abroad and came up with an arrangement for him to be paid ETB 10,000.00 when he reached the Red Sea after crossing Afar and Djibouti desert areas.
Ansha’s face suddenly changed when she remembered the dreadful journey she and 59 other boys and girls of her town had gone through. Ansha said that her suffering had begun much before she started in the harshest desert of the country; rather, her agony had started when she bought some candies for her kids to let her separate from them for a moment and when leaving her parents without giving a proper goodbye. She told the bad news to her parents after she started the not-breathtaking, rather life-taking, venture to beg them to take care of her kids and pray for her on that dangerous trip of her life.
After Ansha gave farewells to her kids and parents, she set out along with 59 other people to Bati town, where different batches of illegal migrants from different corners of the country met and commenced the journey. During the journey, Ansha said that she has witnessed the horrible events of her life so far. Due to the harshest climatic conditions of the desert, many of the migrants, especially females who couldn’t withstand the hunger, thirst, and long journey, had to stay behind in the desert, and nobody knew and even cared as to what would be their fate in that condition. Others who managed to finish the day’s journey ended their days by ignoring their sleep and protecting themselves from those around them who needed to harass them sexually. Finally, and importantly, she even witnessed her villagers, school friends, and even relations eaten by the sea in front of her eyes. After six years of staying in Saudi Arabia, Ansha returned to her home country and is currently struggling to earn for herself and her kids by selling traditional coffee in the corner of her family.
This was the time and situation Terra TECH/Kelem Ethiopia, along with the local government, happened to arrive in her kebele and many others who dwell in a situation like hers. with a program titled “Reducing illegal migration through integrated and effective educational and community awareness programs in North-East Ethiopia, Amhara Region” with a project goal of contributing to the national development goals of Ethiopia and three of the SDGs.
We meet Ansha through Abdu Endris, Lafto kebele (01) social worker, who oriented her about the project, and she is eager to work with Kelem Ethiopia/TERRA-TECH in its contribution towards the reduction of illegal migrants as a volunteer, for she never wishes anyone to go along that way ever again.
She summarized sharing her story by saying a few words that seemed to arise from her regret about what happened to herself and others in the above very brief dreadful journey:
“The project is an eye-opener for the community, but it has to work towards the eradication of illegal migration rather than reducing it, for I had been there myself, and there are people who are heading that direction as we speak!” Besides, she added, “I realize that exploiting this great opportunity (the project at hand) is on the shoulders of her, her villagers, and all those to be capacitated local actors!
