My name is Ousmane and I come from Dakar. I travelled from Senegal to Germany in 2006. At the time I owned a sewing workshop with 15 employees. I actually only wanted to buy goods in Germany, but I decided to stay because I thought that things would be easy in Europe.
I thought that things would be easy in Europe. I thought that people there had the opportunity to realise their dreams, build houses, buy cars – in other words to live a good life. But I soon noticed that I wasn’t well prepared to build a life for myself there.
Things were difficult without a work permit, because I couldn’t earn any money. I also wasn’t allowed to leave the area where I lived. I used the time to reflect and sort myself out, and finally came to the conclusion that I had no future in Germany.