Hope for begging talibe children, St-Louis Senegal

With your help, neighborhood Godmothers are now feeding close to 2,500 talibé children every day

How quickly life can change! From hopeful anticipation, to unimaginable disaster, to tragedy forestalled, all in one month! But with uncertain funding and an unknown path for the pandemic, the future remains terrifyingly unknown for the forced begging street children, talibés, of Maison de la Gare.

COVID-19 changed everything. Flights were cancelled, international volunteers were recalled home, countries were locked down.

It did not take long for things to escalate from bad to very much worse.  As you know from our report last month, Senegal, with limited medical means to fight the virus, quickly moved to lock down the country. Within days internal travel was restricted, streets emptied, and doors closed. Even Maison de la Gare - a last resort oasis of hope and caring for so many talibés - was forced to close its doors.  The team pivoted and responded by providing soap, disinfectant, and hygiene instruction for the children on location in their daaras.  

Confinement and curfew soon tragically complicated the lives of thousands of children.  In Saint-Louis, you normally cannot take a step without bumping into a child dressed in rags who is asking for some coins or food. However, since the coming of Covid-19, with the population afraid and hidden away in their homes, thousands of begging talibé children were left with no access to food.

The amazing neighborhood Godmothers who have helped us to respond to this desperate situation are still at it, seven days a week. Thanks to our incredible donors, thanks to your response, we are still able to support these wonderful women with 800,000 francs (about $1,300 US) each week for their purchases of food. And we are providing masks and hygiene support in the daaras.

This is a terrible situation for the children. Imagine 30 to 70 or more children living together, locked down in a confined space with no hygiene facilities, no access to potable water and very rudimentary shelter. And, for active children, nothing to do!

But there is some encouraging news. For the first time in decades, there are almost no children begging on Senegal’s streets! Is there a possibility to build on this for a more positive future?

Two possible avenues for this are now being modelled, thanks to the pandemic. The first is that some daaras, for whom this is possible, are being allowed and encouraged to return to their home communities. The government and community organization CDPE (Departmental Committee for Child Protection) is organizing this and we are using some of your donations to support the cost. In parallel, we are expanding our support to Cheikh Diallo and the schools of Mbaye Aw as more daaras and children are returning home to that region.

For some daaras, return to their home communities is not a possibility. Could many of these be transitioned to “modern daaras” where the children are not forced to beg? The dedicated Godmothers could be part of this solution as they have been in this moment of crisis. Also, for a dozen or so daaras in proximity to our center, we are developing a plan with municipal authorities by which several hundred talibé children could come every day for the full day, as though they were going to school. This also is something that we could build on.

It is impossible to know what the coming weeks and months have in store for the talibé children. What we do know is that, with your help, we will continue to do everything in our power to make their plight more livable. And, perhaps, to take some steps towards Maison de la Gare’s vision of eliminating the scourge of child begging.

Links:

• This article on our website, with many more photos
• Ce rapport en francais sur notre site web avec beaucoup de photo

Confinement and curfew tragically complicate the lives of thousands of children.  With no one on the streets, there is no one to beg from.

"The situation is explosive," says Issa Kouyaté.

In Saint Louis, you normally can not take a step without tripping over a child dressed in rags who asks for some coins for food.  However, since the coming of Covid-19 everything has changed.  The measures taken by the government to try to contain the spread of the virus and the fear that is beginning to spread among the population have resulted in people staying in their homes.  Thousands of begging talibé children are left with no access to food.  Some families in remote regions of the country demanded that their children be returned home.  However, the government’s prohibition of travel between different regions of the country prevents this.

When this crisis first arrived in Senegal, Maison de la Gare responded quickly by closing its center and providing soap, disinfectant and hygiene instruction for the children in their daaras.  We reported on this last month.  However, we soon realized that this is not enough.  The children have nothing to eat, and we have committed all our resources to feeding them. 

We are now providing nutritious daily meals to over 1,500 talibé children each day in their daaras.

How is this possible?  It is thanks to the brave and dedicated women of the Ndèye daaras, the “Godmothers” in each neighborhood of Saint Louis who have committed themselves to responding to the desperate situation of the talibé children.  We are working with groups of these amazing women in each of ten neighborhoods of Saint Louis, including the north and south island, Pikine, Balacoss, Ndiolofène, Darou, Diamimar, Médina Course, Eaux claires and Léona. 

In each of these neighborhoods, the women are cooking each day for the children of four to seven daaras located close to their base.  Each of these daaras typically has 30 to 70 children, so many children are being reached.  We provide funds at the beginning of each week so that the women can do the shopping.  They are very effective at this, asking vendors in the market for their support for the needy children.  Many respond generously, with the result that the funds go much further than they normally would. 

The food is distributed to the children’s daaras in the large stainless-steel bowls that are very common for communal meals in Senegal. 

With this program now underway, we have been able to give more attention to hygiene awareness for the children and everyone involved.  The apprentices in the sewing program in our centre have been working long hours fabricating face masks; over a thousand of these have now been distributed. 

We are deeply grateful to everyone who has responded to this situation with emergency support of our efforts.  We received emergency grants from Global Fund for Children and from GO Campaign which will allow us to keep going for over five weeks.  Many individual donors have also stepped forward to help us sustain the effort.  And other organizations in Saint Louis and the city government are beginning to adopt this model in neighborhoods and daaras that we have not been able to reach.

Thank you, everyone.  The struggle continues.

Links:

• This report on our website, with many more photos
• Ce rapport en francais sur notre site ... avec plus de photos