Our Work

 In Saint-Louis, boys as young as five live away from their families in residential Quranic schools. Many spend their days in the streets rather than in lessons, carrying tin cans and asking strangers for coins and food. They are called talibé — from the Arabic for "disciple" — and there are tens of thousands of them across Senegal.

Most were sent by parents who wanted them educated and cared for. What too many of them receive instead is hunger, exhaustion, and long days on the road.

In April 2026, the Senegal-Gambia West Africa Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction joined Simple Sparrow Care Farm in Saint-Louis to serve these children directly.

Simple Sparrow works alongside Senegalese leaders to train caregivers and teachers in trauma-informed care — the practice of understanding that a child who has been through hard things needs safety and steady relationships before anything else can take root. Their long-term aim is a care farm in Senegal where displaced women and children can, in their words, learn and grow and heal.

 COGIC Gambia provided the ground: volunteers, housing, meals, supplies, translation, transport, and day-to-day coordination. Simple Sparrow trained and supported local caregivers and teachers in trauma-informed methods, so that displaced women and children can learn, grow, and heal long after the visit ends. Together in April we served the children with food, care, and steady attention — and left behind teachers better equipped to keep giving it. 

We are a Christian jurisdiction serving in a country where nearly everyone we meet is Muslim. We are not here to argue. We are here because a hungry child is a hungry child, and because the love of God is most believable when it arrives as a meal, a clean shirt, and an adult who remembers your name.

Our mission has always been to bring families together, one family at a time. In Saint-Louis, that begins with children who have been away from theirs for far too long.