Mamadou Ba, president and founder of Maison des Talibés, speaks to talibés in Saint-Louis, Senegal, at the opening ceremony of the organisation's centre on Jan. 1, 2026. Courtesy: Ramata Haidara

By Megan Fahrney
SAINT-LOUIS, Senegal, Feb 27 2026 (IPS)

When you walk through the streets of Senegal’s cities, you notice them almost immediately: young boys in worn clothes, clutching plastic cans or tin bowls, weaving between cars and pedestrians to ask for spare change or food. They are often barefoot, alone and hungry. These children are known as talibés.

Boys aged approximately 5-15, known as talibé children, reside in daaras, schools run by marabouts.

Human Rights Watch says many marabouts, “who serve as de facto guardians, conscientiously carry out the important tradition of providing young boys with a religious and moral education.”

However, many of the schools are unregulated.

“However, thousands of so-called teachers use religious education as a cover for economic exploitation of the children in their charge, with no fear of being investigated or prosecuted,” the report says. The talibés from these ‘schools’ spend much of their days begging for food on the streets and suffering a range of human rights abuses. They regularly experience beatings, inadequate food and medical care, and neglect.

Mamadou Ba, president and founder of Maison des Talibés, is striving to change the narrative. Ba created the organisation Maison des Talibés (“House of Talibés”) three years ago in Saint-Louis, Senegal, with the goal of empowering talibés, improving their living conditions, and teaching them skills to help them succeed in young adulthood.

“I want to improve talibés’ lives,” Ba said. “I’m trying to help them in the future when they grow up [to be] self-sufficient.”

Ba himself was a talibé as a child. A Senegal native, Ba was sent away to Daara at the age of seven in a city called Sokone. He said he remained there for eight years, enduring very tough conditions and was not fed by his marabout.

Once Ba aged out of the daara, he moved to Dakar and later Saint-Louis to be a marabout.

While in Saint-Louis, Ba began to devote his time to French and English study. He got involved with an international organisation that supported talibés but found their approach of simply donating food to the talibés was not going to cut it. Ba knew he needed to equip the children with skills to succeed in young adulthood after leaving the daara.

“They have one way out, which is becoming a marabout,” Ba said. “I don’t want them basically to have one choice, which is a Quranic teacher. I want them to have different choices, different options, [to become] whatever they want.”

Maison des Talibés began as a true grassroots effort. Ba formed relationships with local marabouts, gaining their trust and allowing him to enter the daaras to provide the talibés services. He reached out to his friend, Abib Fall, a doctor in the area, who agreed to provide medical care to talibés in his free time. Ba himself began teaching the children English, providing food and rehabilitating the daaras.

“It’s very fundamental to have a connection with the marabouts; otherwise, you cannot do this work,” Ba said. “I speak the language that they speak, so they listen to me more … I’m a former talibé, so I know them very well.”

Equipped with English language skills, Ba expanded the organisation by speaking with international visitors and businesses in Saint-Louis to request financial support and recruit volunteers.

“The objective is education and handcraft,” Ba said. “I know that if they have the education and the handcraft, they will be like me or better.”

“I know how you get them there, because I went through that and I experienced it,” Ba said.

A 2019 report by Human Rights Watch documented 16 talibé deaths from abuse and neglect and dozens of cases of beatings, neglect, sexual abuse and the chaining and imprisonment in daaras. An estimated 50,000 young boys live as talibés across Senegal, as of 2017.

Though families often send their children to live in daaras voluntarily, the system is widely considered to be trafficking. Many talibés in Senegal come from impoverished communities in Guinea-Bissau and other neighbouring countries.

Over the years, the daara system has evolved from what it once was. Historically, talibés resided predominantly in rural environments, where they worked on farms in exchange for food or received donations from villagers. With urbanisation, the system has transformed into exploitation and begging.

Ramata Haidara, an American Fulbright fellow in Saint-Louis, met Ba outside of a museum in the city. After learning about Maison des Talibés, Haidara immediately got involved as a volunteer English teacher.

Haidara said she has witnessed her students’ confidence grow over time.

“[We] show them that you deserve to have resources and an education and people who are kind to you,” Haidara said.

On January 1, 2026, Maison des Talibés unveiled its first physical building to support talibés by giving them a safe space outside of the daara to learn skills, attend classes, eat, shower and receive medical care.

The centre’s opening ceremony drew over 100 talibés. Ba said the organisation serves many more than that in total, and that he hopes to expand its reach in the future.

Cheikh Tidiane Diallo, a perfume and soap maker living in Morocco, was one of Maison des Talibés’ first students. Diallo said he credits Ba and the organisation with giving him the skills and connections to move to Morocco and pursue his career.

“He has a good heart,” Diallo said of Ba. “He has never given up. I really appreciate that passion from him.”

Ba said he sees his younger self in the talibés he serves and is inspired by them just as they are inspired by him.

“This is a place where they can laugh, a place where they can eat, a place where they can feel okay,” Ba said. “This is our home.”

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A piece from Emo de Medeiros’s series Vodunaut in the “Revelation! Contemporary art from Benin” exhibit in La Conciergerie in Paris, France. The smartphones within the cowry shell-decorated helmets feature videos taken on four different continents. Credit: Megan Fahrney/IPS

By Megan Fahrney
COTONOU, Benin, Dec 20 2024 (IPS)

Construction of the new Museum of Modern Art is underway in Cotonou, Benin’s largest city. The museum, along with three others being built throughout the country, are part of the Beninese government’s extensive plan to ramp up the nation’s tourism industry and preserve its culture. It is expected to open at the end of 2026.

A traveling exhibition entitled “Revelation! Contemporary art from Benin” serves as the precursor to the new modern art museum. Originally, the exhibition launched in Cotonou in 2022 under the name “Art of Benin From Yesterday and Today: From Restitution to Revelation.” It then traveled to Morocco, Martinique, and it is now in Paris.

At the heart of the initiatives is the repatriation of 26 pieces of stolen art to Benin from France in 2021. The returned royal artefacts were showcased alongside the contemporary art in the original exhibition in Cotonou, and they have remained in the nation’s reserves since.

The exhibition brings together over one hundred pieces of art by 42 artists from Benin and the Beninese diaspora.

Yassine Lassissi, director of visual arts at the Agency for the Development of the Arts and Culture (ADAC), said the exhibit unites works from both distinguished, well-known Beninese artists and emerging young creators.

The featured pieces represent a range of different forms and artistic mediums, Lassissi said.

“There is really a diversity of techniques,” said Lassissi. “We have paintings, sculptures, installations, multimedia techniques, drawings, and photography.”

Artist Emo de Medeiros showcases two works in the exhibition: a series of fixtures entitled Vodunaut and a short film by the name “Tigritude I.”

De Medeiros said “Tigritude I” was inspired by a quote by Nigerian activist and author Wole Soyinka, who said, “A tiger doesn’t proclaim his tigritude, he pounces.” De Medeiros explores the role of the African diaspora in uniting technology and spirituality through the piece.

“It features an alternative past,” said de Medeiros. “An alternative futurism that is very dystopic with the intervention of futuristic tigers.”

Upon the return of the exhibition to Cotonou from Paris this January, Lassissi said she hopes the artwork can continue to travel to new destinations until the opening of the museum in 2026, including potentially to the United States.

While in Cotonou, the exhibition drew more than 220,000 visitors in just sixty days of opening.

“It was really a historic event,” Lassissi said.

In addition to the Museum of Modern Art in Cotonou, Benin is constructing the International Museum of Memory and Slavery in Ouidah, the Museum of the Epic of the Amazons and Kings of Dahomey in Abomey, and the International Museum of Arts and Civilizations of Vodun in Porto-Novo.

The majority of contemporary art pieces from the traveling exhibition will be housed in the Museum of Modern Art in Cotonou. The 26 returned royal artefacts will be displayed in the new museum in Abomey.

The government plans to situate the Museum of Modern Art within an entirely new Cultural and Creative Neighborhood, which would also consist of the Franco-Beninese Institute, coworking spaces, the Art Gallery, the artisanal village, and artists’ residences.

The nation hopes the museums will strengthen its culture and tourism industry, which it projects to be the second pillar of its economy after agriculture.

De Medeiros said he believes Cotonou had been “sorely missing” a contemporary art museum.

“This was something that was necessary,” said de Medeiros. “I think this definitely should be a platform [where] Beninese artists can showcase their work to the world.”

Note: Megan Fahrney is a U.S. Fulbright fellow. The views expressed are solely the author’s and do not represent the views of the United States government.

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Christophe Aïnagnon dropped out science degree because he realized he would not be able to find a job with his degree. Credit: Megan Fahrney/IPS

By Megan Fahrney
COTONOU, Nov 7 2024 (IPS)

At just 11 years old, with a heavy heart, Louis  peered up at his parents and said goodbye. He was leaving his small village in northern Benin to live with his uncle in Parakou, where the schools were better. Ever since, Louis has continued to make sacrifices to pursue a strong education and a better life. 

Now, at 23 years old, Louis finds himself with an undergraduate degree in mathematics from Benin’s largest public university, speaking nearly perfect English, unable to find formalized employment. His response?

“Hustle,” he says.

“I’m an entrepreneur,” Louis said. “It won’t be easy for me to create a startup, but I have to tell myself in my mind that I can do it even if it is hard. I will [do] whatever I can to make it possible.”

Louis said he is currently launching a company providing computer programming services. He and his team hope to develop apps, create websites and solve technical problems for clients.

In Benin, college graduates struggle to find formalized work. Educated young people find themselves working odd jobs, creating their own companies or remaining entirely financially dependent on their parents.

Few in the country decide to pursue higher education at all. According to the UNESCO Institute of Statistics, only 15% of men and 8% of women in Benin enroll in tertiary education.

Of those who do enroll, the percentage of students who complete their degree is even lower. In the 2022-2023 school year, 58,456 undergraduate students enrolled in the University of Abomey-Calavi, Benin’s largest public university. That same academic year, only 6,614 received a diploma .

Christophe Aïnagnon, now an English student at the University of Abomey-Calavi, dropped out of the science department after two years because he recognized he would not be able to find a job with his degree.

Aïnagnon said he has many friends who drop out of college altogether because they do not think it is worth it to continue. Other friends of his have finished their degrees but cannot find work.

“They think that if they finish, they won’t find a job, [so] they vanish,” Aïnagnon said. “I even have many friends… they study, they work hard, they did everything to finish, but… they didn’t happen to find a job. It’s not that they didn’t know how, but a lot of them are at home now doing nothing.”

Aïnagnon, for his part, has launched his own business breeding rabbits to earn an income.

“It’s the kind of business [through which] I can become who I want and live my best life,” Aïnagnon said.

Last month, the Ichikowitz Family Foundation published a survey that found 60 percent of young Africans ages 18-24 want to emigrate in the next five years. The report surveyed 5,604 individuals and was conducted in 16 different countries.

Louis said it is his dream to immigrate to the United States and has applied for the visa lottery many times.

“That’s why I’m motivated to speak English: to immigrate, to go to the U.S.A.,” Louis said. “When I was a kid, I wanted to study at MIT.”

Others do not wish to emigrate, citing lack of connections abroad, the challenge of finding employment in a foreign country and the difficulty of the immigration process.

Mirabelle Awegnonde, an English student at the University of Abomey-Calavi, said she wants to be a teacher but has to start thinking of alternative self-employment options in case she cannot find a teaching job.

“It makes me afraid sometimes,” Awegnonde said. “I’m afraid. I tell myself, how can I get a job in the future? How can I make myself a job instead? Because I’m a shy person, so… it is hard for me.”

Note: Megan Fahrney is a Fulbright scholar currently living in Benin.

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