Meet the Gambian teacher changing the lives of immigrants in the U.S.
Migration has become prevalent in Africa as many people are constantly moving out of their regions into ‘greener’ areas for better prospects. One such migrant who hails from The Gambia is lifting the flag of his country through his exploits.
Alhassan Susso entered the United States as a young emigrant and faced many challenges but his thirst for success kept him going and now, he is a motivational speaker and renowned educator in New York City.
Susso told Fatu Network, the local news outlet that reported his story, that his path to success was a rather unusual one, stemming from a family tragedy.
“I usually consider myself as an accidental teacher. Never in my wildest dreams, I would have ever imagined I would become an educator. Yet, I went into education as a result of the family tragedy,” he explained.
According to him, his family decided to pursue medical treatment in the United States for his younger sister who fell ill during his college days after all means to cure her locally had failed. After a failed visa attempt, they continued their search for alternative medical treatment.
His sister died later and the shock of the issue led to the death of his grandmother only 8 hours after his sister’s death.
Traumatised and saddened, Susso didn’t give up. He fought his way out and migrated to the United States at age 16 with a degenerative eye disease, retinitis pigmentosa.
Once in the U.S., Susso faced tough times during his days as a teen in the country, having been the only African student in his school and beginning his education there in the eleventh grade.
However, overcoming each obstacle pushed him closer to his dream of transforming the lives of young immigrants like himself.
He graduated with honours in Political Science and History from the University of Vermont and received his Master of Arts in Teaching from Bard College in New York.
Today, Susso is an educator at an International Community High School, a school built for immigrants like himself, where he teaches Government, Economics and Personal Development. He is also the Founder and Director of the Inspiring Teens’ Future programme at the school, a programme that has transformed the lives of over 1000 youths.
His students who are immigrants, live in the poorest congressional district in the United States.
He is the author of ‘Light of Darkness: the Story of the Griot's Son’, a book which aims to give young immigrants inspiration and a roadmap to being successful in the U.S.
In 2017, Susso was recognized as one of the 50 Top Outstanding Educators in the World, a global teacher prize award bestowed upon him by the Varkey Foundation. He also emerged as the 2019 New York State Teacher of the Year and the 2020 Horace Mann Educator of the Year.
He is the recipient of the prestigious Daylight Africa Award and the United Federation of Teachers Audrey Chasen Award. He was awarded the 2019 Cultural Innovator Award by Long Island University, the 2019 Facing History Upstander Award, and is a two-time recipient of the Social-Emotional Learning Innovation Award for Teachers by Education First through the Rockefeller Foundation.
The U.S.-based Gambian teacher is still working hard to improve lives in his home country, Gambia. He owns a foundation which he uses to provide high-quality professional learning opportunities for Gambian children.
Through him, an initiative to highlight the importance of teaching, a national teacher prize has been established in Gambia.
The prize is aimed at identifying exceptional Gambian educators and exposing them to the country so they can become role models in the community to inspire young people to join and stay in teaching.
“I am definitely a passionate educator because I am apparent in my reasons for going into education. I did get all these wonderful awards, yet nothing gives me more fulfilment than in June when I sat at our graduation, seeing those wonderful young emigrants crossing the stage, knowing what we had been through together, the challenges we encountered over the course of the years, to see them cross those stage, no award will ever merge the feeling for me. As a result, the success of my students gives me more fulfilment,” he told Fatu Network.
