When Mady Sissoko was 15 years old, he left his home in Mali to come to the United States, a country he knew little about, to play basketball, a game he only vaguely understood.
Sissoko set off from Tangafoya, a small village 360 miles from Mali’s capital, Bamako, saying goodbye to everything he knew to chase a better life that playing basketball might offer him.
Now 23 and a senior at Michigan State University, where he’s a center on the school’s basketball team, Sissoko has found that better life. And last summer, he returned to Tangafoya to a hero’s welcome.
Sissoko started a foundation that funded Tangafoya’s first school, built a well that provides the village’s first running water, and installed an irrigation system to help with farming.
“People there, they don’t have the opportunities,” Sissoko says, from Michigan State’s campus in East Lansing. “I got an opportunity. Ever since I came to the United States, I wanted to give that back.”
Mady Sissoko was 15 years old when he left his home in Mali to come to the United States. He didn’t know much about the country. He came to play basketball. At the time, he didn’t even know much about the game.
Sissoko set off from Tangafoya. It is a small village 360 miles from Mali’s capital, Bamako. He said goodbye to everything he knew to find a better life that playing basketball might give him.
Now Sissoko is 23 and a senior at Michigan State University, where he’s a center on the school’s basketball team. He has found that better life. Last summer, he returned to Tangafoya to a hero’s welcome.
Sissoko started a foundation that funded Tangafoya’s first school. The foundation also built a well that provides the village’s first running water and installed an irrigation system to help with farming.
“People there, they don’t have the opportunities,” Sissoko says, from Michigan State’s campus in East Lansing. “I got an opportunity. Ever since I came to the United States, I wanted to give that back.”