News from Maison de la Gare
Sewing for Life
Tweeter
Maison de la Gare’s tailoring apprenticeship program takes off
A beautiful new building began to take shape
within Maison de la Gare’s welcome center early in 2018, adjacent to
the garden and the infirmary.
The hundreds of talibé children who frequent the center every day were very curious about what
this would be. But several of the older talibés knew, and they were waiting eagerly to begin a
new and hopeful chapter in their lives.
The talibé youth who stay in their daaras for 5, 10 or even 15 years all face the challenge of
what to do when they have completed their Koranic education or are otherwise too old to continue
in their daaras. They have no formal education and no marketable skills, and most do not want to
return to their communities of origin where they remember almost no
one and have no way of
sustaining themselves. These youth are desperate to find possibilities for a better life.
Many of these older talibés have been with Maison de la Gare for years, and we have become
increasingly determined to support them in developing trades which can offer them self-sufficiency
and respect in society. The agricultural apprenticeship program in Bango was our first step in
doing this, and this was followed in early 2018 with a poultry farming project. The tailoring
apprenticeship project complements these earlier efforts, attracting and motivating more youth.
The new center was completed in the late spring of 2018 and is now fully operational with 12
electric sewing machines. An experienced Saint Louis tailor, Baka Fall of Baka Fashion, has
made a commitment to guide the program as an instructor and a mentor for the apprentices. And
Kalidou, a talibé who has been developing his skills as a tailoring apprentice for many years,
is thriving in his new role as the lead talibé for this program. He is
always present, and his
quiet and supportive teaching approach is well accepted by the talibé apprentices. With Baka’s
support, Kalidou is now capable of producing excellent quality traditional clothing of almost
any design required by the Senegalese market. Kalidou is very proud of his role in this
project. Although he is ready to support himself independently, we hope that he will stay with
the project for some time.
Two other apprentices are sterling examples of the opportunities offered by this new program.
Both have been the subject of earlier reports, as they have searched to find a direction for
their lives.
Souleymane fully understands the need to have a professional skill, as he was launched from
his daara without any ability to earn a decent living. Souleymane was sent to a daara in Saint
Louis from his home in the Gambia at a young age. He began frequenting Maison de la Gare’s
center in 2010 where he faithfully attended literacy classes and became a leader of the karate
program. In 2017, 
Souleymane’s family convinced him to return home for an arranged marriage.
Once there, however, he realized that it wasn’t possible to have the life that he had
envisaged for himself and his family. He returned to Saint Louis determined to learn a trade.
Souleymane expressed his motivation to join the tailoring program saying simply: “I want to
have a meaningful activity and a trade.” He faces the challenge of supporting himself and
his family while continuing in the program. We have provided living accommodations for him,
but he must still eat and send a small contribution home to his wife in Gambia. However,
Souleymane has persisted, and he will soon have the skills that he needs to generate a
living income.
Elhage has also persisted, with a personal drive and motivation that are truly exceptional.
He was very articulate when he signed up for this program: “Not having a trade at my age
is like walking blind. There was no work for me here and I want to
train to have a better
life, to have real work and a skill so that I can run my own business.” Elhage spends two
days a week in the market, working at odd jobs to earn enough money to feed himself for the
week. He works the remaining days of the week in the tailoring apprenticeship program and
he sleeps in Maison de la Gare’s emergency shelter building at night. With his tailoring
skills, Elhage will soon be ready to use his boundless energy to build his own life; he is
a model and an inspiration to the other talibés of all ages.
Apprentices have been at work in the sewing center pretty well every weekday over the past
year, and often on weekends. They have learned to make traditional clothing items such as
pants, skirts and shirts as well as items like colorful shopping bags. These are
beautifully finished, fully on par with equivalent items purchased in the local markets or
elsewhere in Saint Louis.
Many of Maison de la Gare’s volunteers have purchased clothing and other items to take home
with them as gifts or for themselves. The apprentices have produced robust and colorful
bags of different sizes, and other volunteers have taken samples of these home with them for
sale in Canada, the U.S. and some countries in Europe. A flower shop in Ottawa, Canada –
Alta Vista Flowers - is offering smaller bags with some of their
floral arrangements and
they reported sales over $200 during a recent month. Such sales are very motivating for
the apprentices and, if we can build successfully on these beginnings, can make an important
contribution to the sustainability of this valuable program.
The tailoring program has allowed us to respect a promise that we made to the older talibé
children who have grown up with us, a promise to offer them a way of finding true stability
and self-respect in their lives. The tailoring apprenticeship building has become a magnet
for the talibé children participating in our other programs and is a visible statement and
reminder to them that there are possibilities for them to become competent and self-sufficient,
to take charge of their own lives.
We asked Kalidou what the project means to him. His response: “I feel too emotional to
speak. I don’t have words to express how much this project means to me. It is a dream come true.”
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We are deeply grateful to GO Campaign of Santa Monica, California and to Solidarité nationale
et internationale (SNI) of France for making this project possible.
