Street vendors in Benalmádena: 'We come to work, not to run away from the police'

Djibril arrived in Spain 16 years ago after getting on a small boat to Tenerife and eventually moved on to Valencia. Years later he moved to Benalmádena where he had found work. He has been a security guard on construction sites and in hotels but two years ago he became unemployed and has not found another job since. He turned to street vending and it is still what he does for a living to support his family today.

He doesn’t like selling on the street. Neither do most of the other street vendors. “We have no other option. Behind those who sell on the street there are people’s lives,” he said. They have names, families to support and dreams for which they risked their lives at sea to one day achieve.

“We come to Spain with the idea that we will be able to work, to improve ourselves, not to run away from the police. We are honest people, many of us have professions, we know languages and 90% of the Senegalese living in Benalmádena are young; they are under 40 years old. It is a potential that can be used, but until today nobody has done; we have been invisible because we are in the street,” Djibril said.

The Association of Traders and Entrepreneurs of Benalmádena (ACEB) and its president, Rosa González, have proposed changes to help the plight of street vendors whose activity is damaging local businesses. The association suggested that the town hall could run training courses for street vendors, focused on professions that are most in demand, such as hotel maintenance, kitchen workers, gardeners and construction workers.

The town hall gave the green light to the initiative and the business association created an e-mail address for those interested to send their CVs. But weeks later, none had arrived.

“We were surprised, until one of them admitted that most of them didn’t know how to write a CV,” said González, who on Wednesday organised a meeting at the ACEB to help.

Some 78 Senegalese people turned up, supported by representatives of the Senegalese Association of Benalmádena. They all went away with a CV, although only 36 of them are legally resident in Spain. The rest still have paperwork to complete.

“Once we have collected all the CVs, we open two possibilities for them. One is to look for immediate work for all those who have residence papers in order. We are going to send their details to all our members; many of them have previous experience and there is demand for multiple trades. And the other is to start training in September,” González said.

The ACEB already has an agreement with the council-run training company so that the Senegalese can learn Spanish and access courses for waiters, cooks, gardeners, building labourers, food handling or palm tree trimmers.

“Now we also want to negotiate with the Junta de Andalucía so that they can have options to do other training, such as plumbing or electrician work, which are highly demanded professions and many of them have already worked in those fields,” González said.

She added those who do not have papers can at least have the opportunity to train. “It is the least they can do, otherwise they will stay in a vicious circle: without residency papers because they don’t have work and without work because they don’t have papers.”

“I would like to earn a decent living,” said Mbaya, deputy secretary of the Senegalese Association in Benalmádena. He said that he turned to street vending because he had no work, but he has previously worked as a bricklayer and hopes to return to the trade through these courses.