I haven’t yet reported on the conference I attended a week and a half ago. It was put on by an organization called “Crisis Care Training International.” As the name implies, this group holds training seminars all over the world to help caregivers who are dealing with children in crisis. Their curriculum deals with trauma in general, and has modules that deal with specific situations: working with refugees, child soldiers, children with disabilities, and victims of HIV/AIDS, for example. The conference that my colleague Julie and I took part in dealt specifically with ministry to street children.
There’s been a lot in the news in recent months about the street children in Senegal – they are called “talibé.” Talibé is Arabic for “student.” These boys come from villages, sent by their parents to the city, where they receive religious training. Beginning as young as four and five years old, the boys live with a teacher and are supposed to learn the Koran. However, this is a system that lacks accountability, and has been shown to have many abuses. There can be 50 or 60 boys living with one teacher, under appalling conditions. I have met some teachers and have been shown where the boys sleep – on the ground, without even a mat under them. They have no possessions, just the clothes on their backs and the tomato can they are given to take to the streets to use for begging. Every day there are hundreds, even thousands, of these boys on the streets of Dakar. You can’t drive more than a few blocks without seeing groups of them. They spend hours begging, and must bring everything they get back to their teacher. If they don’t bring enough home, they are often beaten. They are not fed, bathed, or taken care of medically.
The conference Julie and I attended was very beneficial to us for two reasons. One was the information we received from the presenters. We heard about many issues that children who live on the street face: low self-esteem, lack of identity, inability to trust, etc. We learned that these children often have damaged emotions – feeling guilty, unloved, abandoned, a burden. We learned some (very) general counseling skills, questions to ask to get a child to open up, how to recognize signs of trauma. It was hard for us to listen to the statistics and the reality of life on the streets for these children – it breaks your heart. But we felt that the things that we learned will be helpful to us.
The second thing we found not only useful but tremendously encouraging was the interaction between the people attending the conference. (As an aside, it was also a great French experience for me – listening to French all day long, day after day!) We were able to meet and get to know people from all over Senegal who are working in different ministries to street kids – and it was amazing to hear how many different ways people are helping. Some have drop-in centers, where the boys can shower, brush teeth, eat breakfast, hear Bible stories, and learn French. Some have residential programs, where the boys live for years, receiving an education and a skill. Some work in advocacy – trying to fix the system from the inside. It was a wonderful networking opportunity and Julie and I came away with several invitations to visit centers we hadn’t even known about before.
I told my mom that attending this conference was like seeing a piece of the puzzle fall into place for Julie and myself, and I really feel that way. Since I arrived back in August, I have been looking for a place to serve. I guess I imagined that once I got to Africa, I would end up in a scene from Unicef or Feed the Children – standing behind a table handing out tin cups of milk to kids, or something. I figured there would be plenty of places that could use another pair of spare hands. But it has not been that easy finding a place to serve, or that clearly defined. As Julie and I visited center after center in the fall, we kept asking ourselves – where can we fit in to this existing ministry? And we could never see an answer. There was no need to help with cooking – every center had a Senegalese woman already doing that, better than we could. Neither of us have medical training. In this culture, hearing a Bible Story taught by a woman would render it unimportant in the boys’ eyes. We had no answers – except for one clear direction. We both felt strongly that regardless of what role we played personally, we wanted to be involved in a place where the kids were hearing about Jesus.
So, back to the conference. The second day there, I felt like we were hearing some very important messages. One presenter spoke about the childhood these children are missing. Coloring with crayons, looking at books, building with blocks – these things are absolutely not known by talibé boys. The presenter talked about how much it meant to the boys, just receiving attention and affection from someone. It started me thinking. I mean, I can do that! I can sit and do a puzzle with a child or watch him paint a picture, I can smile and show him how to write his name. I started to dream about an art/play room where the kids could hang out, to get away from the streets, if only for just a little while. During the break I shared my thoughts with Julie. We have both been very impressed with a particular center that is very close to our houses – a place that provides breakfast and showers, teaches Bible stories, and administers basic medical care to about 100 children. Julie and I talked about how wonderful it would be if we could add a place for the kids to draw and play to the existing program at that center. But we both knew the existing place is tiny – busting at the seams as it is.
Now, throughout the conference there were times during the day where we would break from the program and give each person or group a chance to come up front to tell the rest of us about their work, and give us some prayer requests. Just a few hours after Julie and I had this discussion, the young man who works at the very center we were talking about took his turn to describe their ministry. When it came time for prayer requests, he said he had just one… he said that they were praying for a bigger place! He said they had many things they wanted to do – things the boys had a great interest in, learning French, for example – but that they just don’t have the space for it. I looked at Julie with a big smile – there you go! Maybe while they’re looking for a bigger place, they could look for a place that has room for an art/play center!
So Julie and I planned a meeting this past week with a woman we know who is in a leadership position at the same talibé center. We had a wonderful meeting, dreaming big dreams. She is currently looking at buildings and even land in this neighborhood, with the hope of perhaps building a place, instead of renting. She is very interested in our working with them, and in our thoughts from the conference. It’s all in the dreaming stage right now, but Julie and I are excited about the possibilities – we feel like we are heading in the right direction. In the meantime, depending on my Wolof lesson schedule (which I’ll find out next week), I will probably begin working at the center in its current location, just to begin getting to know the boys. And we’ll see where God takes us from there!
It was a long couple of days, but I was glad to see the kids having fun with their friends. Here are a few more images of the day…
