Fanta Diallo's Senegalese dream

On the streets of Dakar, Fanta Diallo is not likely to get very far without shaking hands with people who know her. She is young and sociable, and she keeps up with what is trending around Dakar by stopping at a coffee shop.

One of the things people are speaking about is the migration of many young Senegalese to Europe, in search of a better life. But for 31-year-old Fanta Diallo, the place of opportunity is actually Dakar. She's a successful social activist who sees a bright future for her country.

That's why she founded Senegalese Dream, an organization that tries to convince young people who hope to find work in Europe to opt for Senegal instead.

One of those people is Fanta's neighbor Bocar Sy. Although he has an education, he couldn't find a job, Fanta explains. "So what do you do? Do you emigrate? Lie down and sleep? No. You get up every morning and do what you can," she says. Fanta helped him set up a coffee shop.

Every month, thousands of young Senegalese leave home in search of work abroad. Many risk their lives trying to cross the Mediterranean by boat. Of the migrants and refugees arriving on the shores of Italy between January and March of this year alone, about 1,200 were Senegalese, according to the International Organization for Migration.

Hope for would-be migrants

Senegalese Dream convinced Bocar Sy to stay, supported him with the official documentation and helped him draw up a business plan. "I presented it to them," Sy recounts, "and they advised me to do this and not that - that this would work out." Business is good. "They found a place for me," he says.

In schools all around the country, Fanta engages with the young generation. She tries to remove some of the illusions young people have about emigrants finding a better life. "They prefer to go sweep the streets of Amsterdam, to go sweep streets of Berlin or Barcelona rather than work the soil here. It's their idea of success," she says to a packed classroom.

"When they come back to Dakar, they're wearing a suit as they get off the plane. Their cousins carry their luggage for them and they marry the prettiest girls," Fanta adds, pacing in front of her audience. "They'll stay in Dakar for a month, before they return to Berlin and go sweeping the streets again." Then she just shrugs, unimpressed, and the students burst out into laughter and applause.

Fanta believes that entrepreneurship and agriculture are the answers to the job crisis. "We need young people who are aware of the role they have to play here, and not young people who die on shores of Spain."

Fanta's own life is her best example. Coming from a modest background, her family wanted her to work in France, but she went to a university instead and got a scholarship with the German Konrad Adenauer Foundation. After that, she became deputy mayor of Dakar. For her, education is key.

Magdinyon Mariebou agrees. "Fanta is my role model; I want to be like her," she says. "And I want to finish school."

Mamodou Makhtar does not share Fanta's vision. Despite his education, he couldn't find employment in Senegal for years. Disheartened, the 35-year-old tried to get to Europe by boat, but the Spanish Coast Guard stopped him. That was last year. Since then he has been saving up for another try.

Sitting with his son at the edge of a mattress that takes up almost all of the unfurnished room, Mamodou Makhtar says he wants a brighter future for the boy. "I don't want him to live like me," he adds. "I have little confidence that I can achieve what I would like to if I stay here."

It is stories like this that Fanta comes across every day. Still, she's convinced that fleeing to Europe will neither help the country nor its people.