How a Senegal fishing family found safe harbour at home

Behind the newspaper headlines and the data on migration flows are countless ordinary people who envision a bright future for their families. Wherever their journeys take them, each of their stories is unique.

Ousmane and Adama are a couple from rural Senegal who dared to dream of a better future abroad – and, with IFAD’s support, ended up finding it at home.

Ousmane, a fisherman from Kafountine in Senegal, boarded a small boat along with 80 others in 2023. In about six days the boat was expected to arrive on the coast of Europe, where he hoped to find work that would support his family and his pregnant wife Adama back home.

“I knew a lot of young people who had emigrated, and I saw what they did for their mothers and fathers,” says Ousmane. “They built beautiful houses for their parents. We’ve been working here in Kafountine for several years now, and we still sleep in houses made from clay and sand.”

But five days into the journey, with 200 km to go, the boat ran out of fuel. As the wind blew them further out to sea and they finished all their food and water, Ousmane had the idea of putting together a makeshift sail with any cloth they could find on board. It was their only hope.

After two weeks, people started to die. One by one, 34 bodies were sent overboard.

“You know that seawater is very salty. It’s 200 times saltier than freshwater,” says Ousmane. “That’s what killed most people. That’s how it happened. I’ll leave it at that.”

After 22 days, the boat drifted towards the coast of Morocco. Ousmane staggered ashore, his dreams of Europe forgotten, relieved simply to be alive.

After receiving food and medical treatment, Ousmane and the other survivors made their way south through Mauritania and finally home to Senegal.

But the reason why he had left remained.

“When we worked, sometimes the fishing was good, sometimes it was bad,” he says. “Sometimes you could go two months without earning anything.”

Without resources to invest in his own fishing equipment, Ousmane was dependent not only on the vagaries of the sea, but also on the whims of those who lent or rented him nets and machinery.

“That’s what made me emigrate,” he says. “That’s the situation.”

It was sheer chance that Ousmane’s wife Adama hadn’t tried to emigrate herself.

“They often say that there are no jobs here, and when you see one of your friends who emigrated to help his parents and family, you want to leave too, to help your own parents,” says Adama.

But when an opportunity arose to leave Kafountine, Adama was pregnant. She decided to stay. To get by, she did any work she could find on the quay and scaled the fish Ousmane caught.

She earned barely enough to cover her own daily expenses and depended on Ousmane’s fickle earnings to feed the family.

“I used to work like everyone else,” she says. “I’d put the fish on the floor and process it as best I could. I would wash the fish, skin it and then dry it.”

Then Adama discovered the IFAD-supported Agri-jeunes project and learned how to prepare high-quality dried fish. After she completed the course, the project selected her to receive funds and mentoring for her business..

Along with the financing, Adama learned how to maintain her business accounts. With better quality fish and stronger business skills, her income grew rapidly.

“Before the funding, sometimes I couldn’t even buy three boxes of fish, which is the equivalent of 50,000 francs (US$80),” she says. “But now I can buy and process up to 250,000 francs (US$400) worth of fish.”

Life still isn’t easy for Ousmane, Adama and their three children. But Adama’s business is now keeping the family afloat as Ousmane rebuilds his own career, working on a small fishing boat.

“With the money she has received, she supports me with the family burdens, so she has lightened my load,” Ousmane says. Adama’s income means that their children are sure to stay in school and get enough food to eat.

Adama has her own dreams for the future: She wants to buy her own business premises and a refrigerator to sell juices and jams made from her region’s famous mangoes.

“I haven’t achieved all my dreams yet, but I think that at this rate I will be able to achieve some of them,” says Adama.

AUTHORS
IFAD
SOURCE
Originally published on ifad.org
PHOTOS
© Bakary Coulibaly