Our Centres offer...
We support two main centres: the first is looking after street children, and the second is dedicated to Education for young girls. Another part of our activities consists of sharing our action with children from affluent European countries mostly, through Art classes and work toward the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award.
Street Children
Education for girls
Street Children
Nazareth Centre, Dakar, Senegal
Outreach
Action
Twice a week the team reach out to children and young adults where they live, in open-air sewers and rubbish dumping sites.
Their mission is to deliver first aid, identify especially vulnerable children, and advertise other free services available.
The team also gets involved in fighting back drug addiction and sexual violence between children and young adults.
Weekly cost for 2 outreach actions: £69
In our
Centre
Once a week (“Wednesday Nazareth“) the centre welcomes between 30 and 65 children.
They feed them, give them first aid, allow them to clean up, give them essential clothing, offer them activities and try to convince them to go back to their families.
Total number of staff for the Nazareth Centre: 9
Annual cost for Centre’s upkeep: £29,000
Cost for one day (Wednesday Nazareth): £100
Summer Camps
Every year the Centre tries to offer a summer camp during which children are taken to a nice and protected area outside Dakar. Children get reacquainted with life in a community instead of only fending for themselves.
This is usually the second (but most significant) step leading to family reintegration.
Camp duration: 10 days
Number of children: 35
Whole Summer Camp cost: £6,000
Family Reunification
This is the ultimate goal, but things can be quite challenging: often children left their families or the local madrasa because of abuse or very poor living conditions, and they are not necessarily very keen to go back to the same environment.
Minimum number of cases per year: 70
Cost to take a child/young man back to his family: £116
Cost of follow up for a child reunited with family: £190
Education for Girls
Saint Joseph Centre, Dakar, Senegal
Qualification
Girls are trained in areas such as professional cooking and sewing to allow them to become financially self-sufficient and provide for themselves and their children throughout their whole lives.
On completion of this training the girls get a State-accredited degree, even allowing for the best among them to keep going for a full “CAP d’Habillement ou de Restoration” (official French qualification for cooking or sewing).
Alphabetisation
The Centre is fighting analphabetisation and gives young girls the opportunity to learn how to read/write/count.
Literacy is a big deal, and the Centre also trains the girls to enable them simple budgeting of their future work activities: how to plan for expenses and how to set money aside.
Many children in Senegal do not have easy access to schools, but the local culture makes it even harder for girls.
Hygiene
Senegal suffers from poor infrastructure making access to water difficult and further suffers from monsoon rain flooding the whole country. This has spectacular consequences in Dakar where the lack of infrastructure doesn’t allow the water to be evacuated and becomes a breeding ground for diseases.
The Centre educates young girls about the importance of hygiene, both personal and where they live.
Info
Annual cost for Centre’s upkeep: £12,300
Full annual girl’s cost: £450
Annual cost per teacher: £1,100
Number of teachers: 4
Number of students: 42
Years of study: 3
