One
of the worrisome situations that lately developed to a big issue in Barra,
Niumi, North Bank Region is the dearth of youth empowerment which is now a
great concern for residents of the region.
Niumi
is located on the mouth of the River Gambia in the North Bank Region of The
Gambia. The people of Niumi were the first people to have an encounter with
Europeans in The Gambia having been the first main port of call for the
European traders entering through the River Gambia.
Aba
T. Hydara, head of Promoters of Artistic Creative Theatre Excellence, who is
also the president of Niumi Fort Bullen Festival, affirmed that lack of
empowerment among the youth of Niumi is among the problems youth are facing in
Barra community.
He
said the youth of Barra deserve attention as far as empowerment is concerned so
that they can complement the government’s development policies.
“Barra has no community hall or youth center,
in the whole Lower Niumi, no single skill center, Barra youths don’t own a
single boat, instead they only run after the pirogue boat plying between Barra
and Banjul who would give them ‘manda’ known as tip.”
Consequently,
Hydara disclosed that lack of youth empowerment is culpable to the increase and
rampant child abuse in Barra. “Children of ages 12, 13, and 15 that are
supposed to be in schools are frolicking boats at the riverside without any challenge
from anyone just because of little ‘manda’ from boat owners,” he said in
sorrow.
According
to him, it is a distracting factor that causes more school dropouts whereby
some of the youth engage in selling illicit drugs while some went on ‘backway’
to Europe and unfortunately died at sea.”
Whatever
the case might be; he argued that if government fails to do something to
empower the idle youths in the community, Barra will remain prone to backway
syndrome. “This is because most of the backway coordinators (human traffickers)
network is still very intact in the region. More so there are people behind
them, ordinary set of people cannot afford a boat as it costs nothing less than
D350,000.00.”
He
lamented that he foresaw the incident which prompted him to write a letter to
the minister of Local Government and Lands in July 2019 and copied to the
governor of North Bank Region (NBR), CEO Kerewan Area Council, councillor of
Essau Ward and district chief of Lower Niumi. However, he said that his letter
was “given a deaf ear”.
In
the letter, according to him, he informed that “Barra deserves better attention
to empower its residents.”
He
added that Barra is faced with series of developmental challenges.
As
a former VDC chairperson and also secretary general of Barra Youth Development
Committee, he thus called on government to work with the VDC to find a solution
to the issue.