Success Stories

Mina in India
Genet in Ethiopia
Cynthia in Paraguay
Clarence in the United States
Elvia in the Dominican Republic
Felipe in Paraguay
Shanthi in India
Abdul in Senegal

Abdul

Synapse Network Center
Dakar, Senegal

Abdul Ba is a talented painter and musician who dreams of becoming a professional artist. The eighteen-year-old Wolof speaker is learning French and English, studying math, developing his artistic skills, and learning how to run his own business. He is already selling some of his paintings and saving the money to invest in his own studio. Just fourteen months ago, life for Abdul was very different. His parents could no longer afford to send him to school so he dropped out and spent most of his time hanging out on the streets with a group of directionless and, in some cases, violent young men.

With limited access to education or training and few opportunities for employment, an increasing number of Senegal’s young people join the growing pool of unemployed or underemployed youth who have few positive options available to them. Like Abdul, an increasing number of young people turn to life on the streets. These youth, most of them boys, grow up in the shadow of drugs, diseases, delinquency, violence, and street gangs. They often resort to begging and working at an early age and thus expose themselves to various forms of exploitation. More and more of these boys are entering daaras, schools that generally offer a narrow education based on extreme religious teachings. In many cases these boys, known as talibes, do not receive the education they are promised and instead spend much of each day on the street, working, begging, or stealing money to support their teachers.

Synapse Network Center, which is based in Dakar and the surrounding neighborhoods, targets boys in the daaras and boys like Abdul who have few opportunities or are at risk of becoming involved in negative activities. Through its Education to Fight Exclusion project, Synapse provides basic education, health and hygiene training, and lessons on personal responsibility to Dakar's vulnerable boys and young men. By addressing larger social and personal welfare issues as well as the three Rs, Synapse strives to prepare these young people for adulthood and entry into the labor force. Synapse has certainly made a difference for Abdul. He says, "I feel more responsible for my future. I have come to believe that my future depends mostly on me, on the way I behave and on my willingness to succeed. I have gained much self-confidence and I now have learned to trust others."

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