Hope for begging talibe children, St-Louis Senegal

Maison de la Gare's newest project - Please support us

Since Maison de la Gare's welcome center in Saint Louis opened its doors to the talibé children in late 2010, and addition of the infirmary in 2011, the center has become a second home to hundreds of children and a beacon of hope to 1000s more.  Our needs have evolved, and we now seek to complete the center with a new building that will help us to address three continuing problems:

• Supporting integration of talibés who have become too old for the daaras - Kalidou, Abdoulaye, Mamadou and Arouna in the above photo are examples of talibé children who have grown up in Maison de la Gare's programs and are now ready to move on from their daaras.  We need to find a way to accommodate them while they complete their schooling or become established with small businesses or other employment.

• Transitional accommodation for talibés in crisis - We regularly take charge of talibé children whom we have found sleeping on the streets at night, on the run from their daaras.  Working with the local office of the Ministry of Justice, we care for these children while arrangements are made for reintegrating them in their daaras, returning them to their home villages, or otherwise.  We need a place where they can be safely sheltered for a period of several days to several weeks.

• Kitchen for food preparation - We need a food preparation space with a sink, an oven and counters to help us feed the talibé children whom we serve every day, with better nutrition and hygiene.  Our food is currently prepared in our office or a workshop, locations which are clearly not suited to this purpose.

To resolve these problems, we propose to use the west end of our centre next to the classrooms, which is now undeveloped.  Our vision is to build there a two-story building with a kitchen, apartments for older talibés and a dormitory for talibés in crisis.  We will define this project in detail, with full costing, over the coming months.  We are seeking financial support from every possible source to make it possible.

We have added two new donation categories for this project, and hope that you will consider helping to make it possible with your donations.

Links:

• Link to this report on Maison de la Gare's website
• This report in French, on Maison de la Gare's website
• Considering volunteering? Check our our program.