AFRICA/SENEGAL - A video game to raise awareness about the plight of many children

Friday, 8 April 2016 minors  

CDC

Dakar (Agenzia Fides) - Cross Dakar City is the name of a video game that highlights the serious situations in which some Senegalese children live, and that shows that video games can be used to offer social awareness. This video game is also used to tell stories, to teach, and in many cases to raise awareness of the real situations that happen in other parts of the world. This is at least the objective of Cross Dakar City, which aims to highlight the situation of helplessness of so many children in Senegal. Some parents who are unable to support their children send them to Koranic schools, or daara, in Dakar, where they hope they are given room and board in addition to the teachings of the Koran.
However, it has been shown that many of these children begin to be exploited and forced to beg on the streets by teachers of the same schools.
This situation is recreated in Cross Dakar City, where Mamadou, the protagonist, one of those children who has to fight against hunger and violence, and tries to survive at all costs. The aim of the game is to guide Mamadou in the search of his biological parents. To do that the player has to cross streets dodging cars, rivers in canoes and avoiding trains in movement. All these are daily real-life scenarios that Senegalese children face along with many other dangers, such as sexual abuse or kidnappings. The game was launched in May 2015. The Day of Street Children will be celebrated on April 12. (AP) (Agenzia Fides 08/04/2016)


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