Child Protection Senegal Project #10053

Hope for begging talibe children, St-Louis Senegal

by Maison de la Gare

Hope for begging talibe children, St-Louis Senegal

Project Report | Apr 9, 2024
Our Work with the Talibes - Annual Report 2023

By Issa Kouyate, Momar Mbaye | and Maison de la Gare's team

You are changing lives … a glimpse into Maison de la Gare’s world

Maison de la Gare promotes the well-being of the begging talibé street children, providing them with protection, education, and a safe haven. We strive to make a significant and lasting difference in their lives. Our priorities are:

Protection: Protecting the children from all forms of violence and abuse that can harm their physical, moral, or psychological well-being.

Learning: Giving them access to education, literacy programs for the youngest children, and vocational training for older ones. This gives them skills they will need for successful integration into society. For the older talibés and others, we support them in starting small businesses to become financially independent.

Safe Haven: Providing the children with shelter, clothing, food, and psychological and medical support, in a safe and nurturing environment.

We are committed to eradicating child begging by talibé children and to combating all forms of child abuse and exploitation.

We invite you to read our 2023 annual report to see for yourself how we are progressing towards these goals. This is the link. Here are the highlights:

We registered children entering our center an average of 2,680 times each month in 2023, a total of 2,326 different children over the year.

We treated on average 527 children each month in our infirmary for cuts, wounds, scabies, dental and vision problems, burns, diarrhea, malaria, and broken limbs. We also made 184 visits to the daaras where the children live, providing 4,543 treatments there.

188 children whom we rescued from the streets found refuge in our emergency shelter before being reintegrated into secure situations.

We gave basic literacy instruction to about 30 children each day in our three classrooms. These children came from over 50 different daaras and had a wide range of ages.

27 older talibés graduated from our poultry farming apprenticeship program, and 7 from the tailoring program.

We granted 38 microfinance loans totaling $12,660 US during the year, 19 of these to older and former talibés.

10 volunteers spent between 3 and 12 weeks with us during the year, making invaluable contributions to all our programs and enriching the lives of the children we serve.

All of this is only possible because of your support, because of the many hundreds of donations that we receive from you, our supporters around the world. Well over half of our total funding comes from your individual donations through GlobalGiving in the US, Europe, and Australia, through CanadaHelps and the C.F. Johnston Foundation in Canada, and through direct donations to us in Saint Louis.

We are deeply grateful, and we are committed to making every dollar, every pound and every euro count in giving these precious children the chance for a better future.

Links:

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Mar 27, 2024
Learning from Others to Become Better Men & Women

By French students from Brittany | Volunteers with Maison de la Gare

Our volunteer experience at Maison de la Gare

A class of French students from Brittany volunteered at Maison de la Gare in Saint Louis in early 2024. This is their account of their experience.

Who are we?

We are 17 students studying for the Advanced Technician’s Certificate - Agricultural Specialty at the Centre de Formation Technique par Alternance (Technical Training Center, CFTA) in Montfort-sur-Meu, Brittany, France.

As part of our training, we must carry out an Initiative and Communications Project. When the time for this collective project arrived, our thoughts turned to the possibility of a professional humanitarian mission with the aim of making ourselves useful and bringing our support and knowledge to a population in difficulty.

We contacted several organizations that could help us with this project, and GlobAlong was quick to support and encourage us. Our dream was about to become reality!

This is the first time that this kind of initiative has been proposed in our school. However, with the support of our teacher Nolwenn Guerin, we succeeded. It wasn't without its difficulties, as the administrative procedures were cumbersome.

Where there's a will, there's a way!

Let the adventure begin

Arriving in Senegal from Nantes for a two-week stay, we quickly lost our bearings (heat, noise, Wolof...). However, we were determined to savor every moment of this incredible adventure. We knew even then that this experience would stay with us forever.

It was in Saint Louis that we met the Maison de la Gare team. They put us at ease from the very first meal we shared. After a tour of Saint Louis and a visit to Maison de la Gare’s center, it was time to work with and for the talibé children.

We were able to take part in providing medical care for the talibé children and making bread for them, and to participate in educational activities, sports, and games.

We also accompanied some members of the team (Abou, Sulayman and El Hadj) on their night rounds, looking for children living in the street. We worked on renovation of daaras. And we led the creation of a vegetable garden within the center, contributing our knowledge and advice to Samba, Abou, Issa, and the others who will now continue this project.

In our various activities around the daaras, we noticed the differences between good and bad daaras, particularly in terms of living conditions. Some suffer from a total absence of hygiene, which increases the spread of diseases such as scabies.

It was particularly satisfying to be able to put our agricultural knowledge and skills to good use setting up the vegetable garden. It was challenging because of soil type, climate, soil condition (waste) and the fact that we were starting from scratch. But with our shared energy, our efforts paid off. The carrots are starting to sprout!

Thank you, Maison de la Gare!

Thanks to you, Issa, the team members and the talibé children. We had a unique and incredible experience, meeting some unforgettable people. The children's smiles will remain etched in our memories forever.

We would also like to thank CFTA for accepting our project, and especially Nolwenn for her unfailing support. Without her optimism, it would not have been possible. And we thank GlobAlong for guiding us and informing us about this mission.

Above all, we thank Maison de la Gare and its wonderful team for the work that they do every day, and for their kindness towards the talibé children!

We leave with heavy hearts, but this trip has changed us forever!

Our duty now is to raise awareness of this issue and to continue the work we've started so that, one day, all talibé children will be happy and want for nothing...

JEREJEF!

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Feb 28, 2024
Inspiring Encounters Working with the Talibes

By Manon Very and Lucie Delorme | French volunteers with Maison de la Gare

Our volunteer journey in Senegal

Our three weeks volunteering at Maison de la Gare were an extremely enriching adventure. As soon as we arrived, we were confronted with the difficult reality in which the talibés live. The lives of these young children, left to their own devices and often mistreated, touched us deeply.

However, amid these difficulties, what struck us most was the generous spirit of the Maison de la Gare staff and volunteers. Each of them, with their unwavering dedication and love for the children, was a source of inspiration. Their infinite patience, their ability to bring comfort and their determination to make a difference in the lives of these young people is admirable.

Every French or English lesson we gave was a precious moment. The children’s eagerness to learn, in spite of everything, is a testament to their resilience and determination to give their best.

Maison de la Gare’s volunteer handbook was a great resource before we came; it helped us to know and understand a little beforehand what we were getting into. To be successful as a volunteer, you have to like being surrounded by and talking to people, being tolerant, grateful, open and willing to exchange. And you must always be aware that the reality of these children is difficult. A lot is being done to give them a better life and a better future, but there's still a long way to go. Going on night rounds looking for children sleeping on the streets, and medical visits to the daaras where the children live, are moments when the reality of their daily lives hit us right in the face.

As for the various volunteer assignments on offer, we were given plenty of guidance to discover each one and find the ones where we felt most at home. We also recommend staying with a host family, to be totally immersed for the duration of your stay. Many thanks to Madame Bawo, who was like our grandmother.

The three weeks went by at breakneck speed, leaving us with a slight feeling of frustration at not being able to stay longer. We would have loved to have stayed to deepen the bonds we'd created with these wonderful children, and also with the friends we'd made there. The reality is that three weeks is far too short to really come to grips with the complex challenges of the children’s daily lives.

Our experience at Maison de la Gare was memorable in many ways. We sincerely hope to be able to return, next time for a longer period. By then we'll have worked on our Wolof and Peul, we promise! Indeed, the language barrier can sometimes be a hindrance to the organization of recreational activities.

We'd like to thank everyone we've met from the bottom of our hearts. Thank you for the exchanges, the smiles, the sharing, the invitations, and the many moments shared. They will remain with us forever.

Manon and Lucie

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