Welcome
“Nothing is more important than building a world in which all our children have the opportunity to realize their full potential and grow up in health, peace and dignity.”
Koffi A. Annan, Secretary General of the UN
About Us
The OASIS center is a day reception center for street children in Senegal. Launched in May 2022, it is a young project which aims to eventually open a professional reception and training center.
Our desire is to transmit God's love to children and help them have a better outlook on the future.
Our goals
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Create perspectives for a better future.
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Allow children to leave the streets and help them return to their families.
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Open a reception center for those who are rejected and cannot return to their families.
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Help young people have access to schooling and professional training.
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Awareness work with families and the local community.
Our values
We believe that children deserve special attention from us because they are unique, precious and irreplaceable.
The OASIS center aims to enable children to feel loved, valued and have access to a dignified life.
The activities of the center are carried out on a Christian basis and are open to everyone while respecting their origins and convictions.
We transmit to them the message of God’s love through our testimony in word and deed.
We want the OASIS center to be a space of kindness for them, that they can be children while thriving in various activities adapted to their age and allow them to acquire knowledge with a view to being able to exercise a profession.
Collaboration
We work in collaboration with ReachAcross Switzerland which is an international Christian organization whose mission is to serve Muslims so that they experience the love of God.
We also work with the local community and Koranic schools.
Context of Senegal
The Republic of Senegal is a country located in the far west of the African continent. She faces the phenomenon of talibés or child beggars.
Talibécomes from the Arabic talib, which means disciple, student. The talibé is therefore a student attending a daara (Koranic school) to learn the Quran. In Senegal, the talibé is generally a boy aged 5 to 15, entrusted by his parents to a Koranic master (or marabout) so that he can take care of his religious education. Parents' motivations can be economic (lack of money), social (children of a deceased or out-of-wedlock wife for example), educational (a "turbulent" or "rebellious" child) and finally religious (transmission of Islam). In return, the talibé must do domestic work, and is generally forced to beg in the streets in order to meet his needs and the needs of his master and his family. In 2010, the number of talibés in Senegal was estimated at 50,000 by the NGO Human Rights Watch and at more than 100,000 children in 2019. A large number of talibés today come from child trafficking organized by fake marabouts more motivated by personal enrichment than by the education of young people. A talibé is excluded from any health, hygiene and education system. He can go many years without seeing his parents again and completely lacks love.
The problem
A child needs a stable, loving and secure environment in order to flourish and develop. However, on the street, many basic needs are not ensured such as the need to eat, the need to sleep, to dress, the need for hygiene, to avoid dangers, etc. These are the basic needs which, if not ensured, do not allow the child to learn, have fun and achieve (according to Virginia Henderson's 14 basic needs).
There are 6 major problems that impact them in their development:
1) Begging: In 2016, the government passed a law banning child begging on the streets. In fact, many Koranic schools still make their students beg and street youth often have only this as a resource to survive.
2) Abuse: vulnerable, young people are often faced with physical or psychological abuse.
3) Precariousness: they often do not have a place that allows them to have basic hygiene, thus promoting certain health problems. They also do not always have access to health care.
Their poor diet often leads to nutritional deficiencies and anemia.
4) Drugs and other substances: in fact, on the street, young people are often tempted by various substances to forget their problems. A great scourge is guinze (a diluent that young people inhale).
5) No schooling or training: this leads to illiteracy and difficulties in having a gainful activity and a risk for them that the situation becomes chronic in adulthood with few prospects for the future and difficulties in providing for themselves. their own needs.
6) Delinquency: it is not uncommon for this to be their only option to meet their needs.