Today I want to share a story that deserves to be known.
Not to idealise it.
Not to romanticise pain.
But to understand why Vocational Education and Training, when well regulated and properly supported, changes lives.
Ahmed Mansur arrived in Spain as a minor, alone, without documentation, after a journey that no teenager should ever have to experience. He came from Ghana, pushed by an impossible economic reality and with an idea as simple as it was powerful in his mind: to study and help his family.
What many people do not see —and what is too often ignored in public debate— is that integration does not happen by itself.
It requires structure, regulation, clear pathways and committed professionals.
In Ahmed’s case, the turning point had a name:
👉 a social worker.
A professional who did not look only at the emergency, but at the future.
Who did not improvise, but proposed a realistic, regulated and achievable training pathway.
First, learning the language.
Then, a PFI programme.
Later, a medium-level vocational training cycle.
After that, a higher-level vocational qualification.
Today, Computer Engineering, combining work and studies.
That is not luck.
That is system.
That is VET.
That is what the new Vocational Training Law (2023) strengthens:
flexible pathways, guidance, second chances and real connection with employment.
Ahmed has received awards such as the FPCAT 2024 Award and recognition from SEPIE, but the real achievement is something else:
👉 proving that when society invests in education and training, everyone benefits.
And also dismantling a dangerous myth:
that everything can be solved by “letting things happen”.
No.
Inclusion requires rules, trained professionals and well-designed public policies.
Today Ahmed does not only study.
He wants to give back what he has learned.
He wants to create a computer classroom in Ghana so that other young people can have what he did not have.
Stories like his remind us of something essential:
👉 VET is not a plan B.
It is a main gateway to dignity, employment and social cohesion.
Let’s tell more of these stories.
Let’s defend the professionals who make them possible.
And let’s continue to support a Vocational Education and Training system that organises, supports and transforms.
Because talent exists.
The difference is made by opportunity.
