Leila Janah and her NGO Samaschool was focused on getting jobs for Africans — on getting Africans hooked in to the global economy. First she tried finding simple jobs that Silicon Valley needed doing. Then she worked on training Africans with high-tech skills to use the freelancer sites like Upwork. Now she has died and it looks like everything samaschool.org learned in training people is lost — nothing remains on their website.
Meanwhile in 2020, Morrocco and Libya, with the approval of the EU, decided to close routes of the “pateras” to Europe. That meant that a route unused (and dangerous) since 2006 from Senegal to the Canaries is now being used again. In Oct 2020, 140 people died in a boat using this route. A Senegalese mother who lost her son Omar says this:
“The politicians arrive with bags of rice, oysters, and other things. We’re fed up. We don’t want their rice, we want opportunities, work. They give us rice, it gets eaten, then what?”
(from El Diario: “Cuando tu hijo se marcha sin decir adiós”: https://www.eldiario.es/desalambre/desperte-habia-ido-senegal-sufre-jovenes-arriesgan-llegar-europa_1_7324191.html)
African talent scouting companies are growing. Andela.com even channels Leila Janah’s quote into their own: “Brilliance is evenly distributed, but opportunity isn’t.” But the poorer people won’t have the training it takes to get scouted.