Life in Senegal can be grueling. Poverty is widespread and health care, sanitation and education are often non-existent.
Many families are so poor that they give their young sons to city clerics many of whom force the boys to live in terrible conditions, suffering beatings and begging all day with only sugar cubes to provide them with energy.
In 2004, UNICEF estimated that about 100,000 children--1% of Senegal’s children--were working as street beggars. The vast majority are talibes--boys forced to beg as part of their Koranic education.
These boys (very top) were begging on a busy highway when our teams encountered them. Their tragic faces, pleading for help as they lean in our van window, are unforgettable.
These boys are often called “tin can boys” because they carry rations of few sugar cubes in the same tin cans they keep any coins they’ve begged. These boys tend to be very skittish and the blurry photo (below, middle) shows the contents of one boy’s can.
We’ve seen boys as young as three crossing busy highways and waiting, hungry, by the road for people to give them coins or food.
The boy (below, bottom) begged outside of our hotel. We brought him food each morning, but it is terribly painful to know his life is bleak despite the temporary care of strangers.
Girls face shocking tragedy as well. Daughters of poor families are forced to marry as a second or third wife when they are only children. Our teams have often encountered very young mothers who have already lost three or four babies.
At our sister charity, My Father’s House Children’s home in Dakar, children find hope. At risk children are lovingly nurtured in a forever home.
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