Hope for begging talibe children, St-Louis Senegal

A grade 9 student volunteer has been successful in establishing one-on-one e-mail linkages between talibé children involved in Maison de la Gare’s programs and students in her high school, Ashbury College in Ottawa, Canada.

The student, Rowan Hughes, guided 12 talibé boys and their teachers in each establishing a personal gmail account, and then helped them to compose and send their first ever emails to their correspondents in Canada - also students of French as a second language - and to their teachers who were waiting to receive these messages and reply in kind.  The email exchanges were followed up with a Facebook video chat, in which the pairs of correspondents were able to introduce themselves to one another in person.  The younger class of talibé students was also invited to Skype video chat with a class of students of similar ages from Manor Park Public School in Ottawa.

All of the talibés who participated in these exchanges were astonished and very excited to be able to see and speak with students in Canada who were clearly interested in getting to know them.  As the conversations progressed, the confidence of the talibés soared.  A Canadian student asked his talibé friend if he understood English.  The talibé replied, with a brilliant smile and a laugh, “No.  Do you understand Wolof?”  And, a sense of happiness and wonder spread among the Maison de la Gare boys as it became apparent that they had interests in common with their new Canadian friends, and that both groups of students were similarly challenged and yet undaunted by learning the French language.

The exchanges were a great success.  The experience was all the Maison de la Gare boys talked about afterward.  Being involved in such a way with Canadian students via computer captured their interest and instilled a sense of pride and awe.  As word about the computer exchanges spreads among the talibés, more are becoming keen to visit the centre regularly to attend classes and eventually advance to become “email talibés” as well.  Email exchanges among the talibés and Canadian students will continue, opening a window on a much wider world to the talibé and Canadian students alike, and enriching the lives of all involved.

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* The title of this report is taken from a comment by a visitor to Maison de la Gare’s Facebook page, commenting on a photo and description of this initiative: “Un petit pas pour la technologie, un bond de géant pour les talibés”, an allusion to Neil Armstrong’s words as he took his first steps on the moon.

Maison de la Gare has received donations totalling more than $8,000 (or £5,000) from over 180 donors since joining GlobalGiving and GlobalGiving UK in the spring of this year (2012).  A very gratifying recent spurt of donations from the UK in response to Janek Seevaratnam’s sacrifice of his magnificent and much-admired dreadlocks has brought total givings close to our current objective of $10,000 (£6,375).  This has stimulated us to reevaluate our suggested donation amounts and the overall financial objective.

Our many donors have responded generously to some proposed contributions, and less to others.  Our redesigned donation suggestions reflect this, while at the same time representing five of Maison de la Gare’s major strategic thrusts.  The five proposed donations are:

-  Nutritious baguettes for talibé students, an essential requirement to make it possible for children to be able to attend classes or sporting and other activities for a few hours instead of begging for their food on the street.

- Clothing, including a shirt, shorts and simple shoes, to replace or upgrade the single outfit of heavily worn clothes that each boy has.

- Medical care for malaria, skin diseases, eye infections and much more, from which so many talibé children suffer.  This includes resources for supply of mosquito nets, compresses, bandages, cotton, alcohol, betadine soap, sutures and much more.

- Funding of soccer tournaments for up to 200 talibé boys, a unique opportunity to bring some fun and healthy physical activity to their very difficult lives.  The funds cover the costs of water, photos and prizes.

- Registration of talibé children in formal schooling, including the cost of school fees, notebooks, pens, pencils, erasers, books and school bags.

Your donations through GlobalGiving are making a very important contribution to financing Maison de la Gare’s activities.  However, the project is on-going, and we will have to increase the financial objective from time to time as donations are received.  At this time, we are increasing our objective to a total of $12,500 or approximately £7,900.

We are enormously grateful for your generous response to this opportunity to make life better for the talibé street children, and hope that we can count on your continued support.