Money can be made everywhere – either abroad or at home

Editor, Thank you immeasurably for the Sunday Times’ consistent articles about financial literacy. Here are my comments with reference to the article, “Forget going abroad, you can make money at home”, (Sunday Times, October 13).Although I agree with the writer that we can make money even back home, I believe there are some conditions for a sustainable development and some African countries are still far behind.According to columnist Allan Brian Ssenyonga, it’s true that “we still have a lot of work to do back home”. He highlighted a number of simple issues one could raise as “excuses” to leave Africa for the United Kingdom.Again I found your conclusion a bit contradictory. There’s where you said “If you do the right thing, wherever you are…” So what is wrong in being in Europe and doing the right stuff? Indeed your American millionaire fled to another country as a refugee.Why polygamy and not polyandry in Africa? Do not get me wrong: this is more a sociological issue than biological. Therefore you took a risk to reduce it to a simple male visual stimulus.Rwema, United Kingdom*********************Very good points are made in this article. What you forgot to mention is external factors. Some people may have wealth in their minds but be limited by external environments: political stability, unfair barriers to entry to cite a few.Not all people who choose to stay abroad don’t know they can make money home, sometimes they choose so because of other reasons. No study has been done yet, but I believe that the first incentive for people to live and stay abroad may not be just success in terms of making money.Let’s look at the grassroots of the issue. It all starts in our education system where we are taught how the West is better than our continent. This education system should be changed. How on earth are we still following the same education system as the one we had during colonisation? Are you going to blame the kids dying to get a visa to go to a “better” country when that is what they learned in school?Second, our African governments in history have succeeded in making it almost impossible for smart people to live in their countries. A smart person would not like to live in a place where he can’t freely express himself even if that money was there.In addition, wars, corruption, injustice, segregation, and others have worsened the situation.My point is: let’s change our education systems. Brain drain is not the reason for our poverty and insecurity.Jean-Léon Iragena,United States

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Money can be made everywhere – either abroad or at home