Senegal’s child beggars show limits of ‘apptivism’

TO GO WITH AFP STORY BY JENNIFER O'MAHONY Senegalese software programmer Ousseynou Khadim Beye poses with tablet computer displaying his Cross Dakar City application in Argenteuil, north of Paris, on April 22, 2016. Child beggars remain so numerous in Senegal they pass unseen, despite government pledges to eradicate the problem by 2015. Often from poor rural families, the talibes are sent to the Senegalese capital Dakar and other cities to memorise the Koran, leaving them vulnerable to abuse and at times receiving little real education. Arcade-style gaming app Cross Dakar City was launched a year ago to great fanfare at home and abroad, setting 32-year-old Ousseynou Khadim Beye apart as the first Senegalese software designer to make it solo onto the charts of the Apple and Android stores. With his app he wants to raise awareness of Senegal's child beggars. / AFP PHOTO / MARTIN BUREAU

DAKAR: Mamadou is a child beggar wandering the streets of Dakar, perilously darting in and out of traffic as he tries to gather enough money for his Islamic teacher to feed him. 

But Mamadou is different from an estimated 30,000 boys who share his plight in Senegal. He is made of pixels, a virtual urchin created for mobile screens by app developer Ousseynou Khadim Beye.