This year, Bronx high school teacher Alhassan Susso received $25,000 when he was honored with the FLAG Award for Teaching Excellence, a prize given to New York City teachers who inspire “learning through creativity, passion, and commitment.”
And he immediately gave it all away.
For years, Susso has been raising funds for a teacher-of-the-year prize in his home country of Gambia. The prize is offered through a nonprofit he started, the Namie Foundation, which is named after his grandmother.
“The truth is, I took $45,000 out of my retirement,” Susso told the New York Times, in reference to the nonprofit’s starting budget of $75,000. “We worked hard to raise the rest from friends and family.”
For months, Susso had been preparing an application to receive a public diplomacy grant through the U.S. Embassy in Banjul, Gambia.
In May, the application webpage disappeared. A representative from the State Department told The New York Times that the public diplomacy awards had been pulled for review “to determine their alignment with the administration’s priorities.”
So when Susso received his own prize money in June, he said it was a “no-brainer” putting it towards the Namie Foundation’s teacher-of-the-year prize.
For Susso, it’s not just about rewarding hardworking teachers in critically underfunded school systems. As someone who is legally blind in one eye and losing sight in another, it’s also about funding programs that help disabled students thrive.
“Disability is stigmatized [in Gambia],” Susso said. “People who are disabled can be successful if they are given the proper support.”
A version of the article originally appeared in the 2025 Education Edition of the Goodnewspaper.
Header image via Yan Krukau / Pexels
