Saint Louis, a particularly-affected city

Senegal has more than fifty thousand begging talibé children. They come from villages in the interior or from neighboring countries like Gambia and Guinea-Bissau, sent by their parents to the cities to study in Quranic schools, "daaras," where they are forced to beg for money on the streets. What was once a system of learning the Quran has become purely exploitative. Even if not all Quranic schools make their children beg, the reality is hard to hide: the talibés constitute the backbone of this army of small beggars who populate Senegalese cities every day. The money they collect supports their exploiters, unscrupulous marabouts who take advantage of the poverty and illiteracy of the rural families who entrust their children to their care.

The city of Saint-Louis is particularly affected by the problem of the talibés. Around fifteen thousand boys—the "talibés"—wander the streets every day in search of alms, caught in the cycle of tradition, poverty, and the grossest exploitation of children, which, for Senegal, a tolerant, relatively stable, and growing country, represents both a shameful practice and one of its greatest challenges. These children were entrusted to Koranic teachers, marabouts, by their families from the age of four or five, and they do not see their families or have any contact with them for many years—in many cases, forever. They live in daaras (we counted almost two hundred in Saint-Louis) in brutal conditions, without sanitation, clean water, adequate shelter, or medical care, and they must beg in the streets for six to ten hours a day for their own food and the quota of money demanded by their marabout. Their only education consists of learning to memorize the Quran in Arabic.

Some of these children flee these abusive conditions, often having suffered severe physical abuse, and hundreds live on the streets in even worse conditions. They experience physical suffering and emotional damage that can only color every aspect of their future lives. Boys who remain in their daaras for 5, 10, or 15 years face the challenge of knowing what they will do when they complete their Quranic education or are too old to continue living in their daaras. They have neither formal education nor marketable skills, and most of them do not want to return to their home communities where they remember almost no one and have no means of supporting themselves.

These children are looking desperately for a better life.  Maison de la Gare helps them achieve this.