At 13 years old, Younousse Diop said goodbye to his family in Senegal and boarded a packed boat with 110 people heading to Spain’s Canary Islands.
“You board the boat, and the first thing you think of is … ‘will I die or arrive?’,” Diop recalled.
Many refugees take this deadly route in hopes of escaping danger and instability in their home countries. Migrant minors who arrive in Spain alone stay in government-run reception centres while their petitions for asylum are studied.
Now, 27 years later, Diop is a coach in a football programme for migrant kids without parents in the islands. He encourages them to follow their dreams.
“What they need above all is to be heard, that we take their hand and look at them,” he said, adding that the children need love and to talk to their families.
The programme, called “Sansofe”, meaning “welcome”, finds football clubs on the archipelago for migrant youth.
“The aim is to help them to integrate, that they get ahead,” said Antonio Rodriguez, a psychology professor involved in the project.
