Hope for begging talibe children, St-Louis Senegal

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:

• Maison de la Gare 2023 Annual Report
• Rapport annuel 2023 de Maison de la Gare, en francais

A window into a brutal reality

Many of our reports celebrate happy times with the talibé children, their resilience, and their successes. And there is much to celebrate.

However, this masks the harsh reality. Every child we work with is a victim of a contemporary form of slavery and a victim of torture. They live their lives without family nurture or support, deprived of decent shelter and hygiene facilities, and begging for their food and for money.

Since 2013, our work has been partially supported by the funds of the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights, initially by the Slavery Fund and for the past two years by the Fund for Victims of Torture.

Each year, we must prepare 20 detailed case studies of victims for the Torture Fund. Each of these is a window into the heartbreaking reality of these children’s lives. Every story is different. We are sharing one of them here, to give you a window into this world.

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Samba Sy is a 19-year-old adolescent who comes from the Kaolack region of Senegal. His father is a farmer, while his mother runs a small business selling local products and looks after her children. Samba is the third oldest of five brothers and two sisters.

Six years ago, Samba’s father decided to entrust him to a cousin who is the marabout of a daara in Saint Louis. Arriving there at the age of 13, Samba embarked on the long journey of a talibé's life, with all the ups and downs that entails. He soon found himself begging on the streets of Saint Louis for his marabout’s benefit. Samba, having left his family home for a decrepit daara with deplorable living conditions, suffered a severe psychological shock realizing that his life was entering a new and very difficult chapter.

Samba was subjected to physical violence from the first days of his arrival, due both to not being successful in begging for the 200-franc quota imposed by his marabout and to not mastering the memorization of versus of the Koran as required. Each time, he was subjected to a beating, either by the marabout himself or by one of the older talibés of the daara. Such violence in daaras becomes the norm for both the marabouts and their victims. The older talibés are themselves victims of this vicious cycle, which they repeat believing that it is the only way to forge the young talibés into valiant men.

After living this situation for over five years, with violence and daily humiliation, and after a particularly violent incident with resulted in him being hospitalized, Samba decided to run away from the daara and live on the street. He slept in a small shelter that he set up near the market and did small tasks to make money to meet his basic needs.

It was after several days on the street that a discussion with another talibé who comes regularly to Maison de la Gare motivated Samba to finally take charge of his life. The talibé told him about the karate program he participates in. He also explained the support he gets at the center, talking about the different activities that we offer for talibé children. When Samba expressed interest, the boy put him in touch with Buaró, our staff member responsible for the karate program.

Buaró immediately recognized Samba’s desperate situation. He won the boy’s confidence, supported him, and brought him to our center. Because Samba was still suffering from his beatings, our medical team of Awa and Alagie took charge of him, treated his wounds, and gave him antibiotics.

Aby and Aïssa in our emergency shelter took Samba in for four days while he recovered from his injuries. He was able to shower, was given new clothes, and enjoyed regular nourishing meals. He quickly regained his strength in the safe and reassuring environment.

Because of the traumatic nature of his experience, Samba participated in psychological support sessions with the emergency shelter team. The educators supported and comforted him and helped him to understand that his situation was not his fault. With this support, his mental health and emotional well-being steadily improved.

We initiated a search for Samba’s parents and issued a warning to his marabout. The marabout admitted beating Samba. He acknowledged that he had crossed the line and that this should never happen again in his daara.

After finding Samba's father, we organized a mediation session at our center with him and the marabout. We confronted them with the facts and clearly defined their responsibilities in this tragic story. Finally, an agreement was reached for Samba to return home to his family in Kaolack.

Samba is now home, secure in his family environment and working out the next direction in his life. Our educators continue to support him with regular telephone calls, to both him and his parents.

The tragic cycle has been broken, and Samba has the chance to build a better future.

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The name and region of origin of the talibé child featured in this report have been changed.  All the photos except the first one are staged with a talibé of the same age.

“Samba” was one of 188 talibés welcomed to our emergency shelter in 2023, each of them having a similar heartbreaking story. 45 of these boys were returned to their families in their home communities, 135 were reintegrated into their daaras, 5 were referred to other centers, and 2 ran away.

Links:

• This report on Maison de la Gare's website
• Ce rapport sur notre site web, en francais
• Learn more about the begging talibe children here