By Ousman Seckan
Born and raised at London Corner in Serekunda, Kanifing Municiplity, Renneh Sanyang is a young Gambian who possesses multiple blue-collar job skills owing to working under different skilled persons at a tender age, in order to get enough money to provide food for his family as he had an incapacitated mother.
Today, Sanyang’s efforts had considerably paid dividends as he is now earning a living through plumbing, tailoring, tilling, masonry, wiring, satellite installation, and carpentry works.
Having lost his father at the age of 11, the young Sanyang said he had been struggling with his mother to make ends meet, narrating that as a school-going child, he couldn’t focus on one work-all what matters to him was to get commission for his family at the end of the day’s work.
“I lost my dad at the age of 11 and since then, my mom had been sick. As a boy, I saw my mom struggling; even to have something to put on the table was a problem. This is the main reason that motivated me to do these works because when the carpenter was going to work I would go. When the mason was going, I would go, and all others just to acquire some money to put food on the table. During this period, we were paid D35 at the end of the day’s work,” he recounted.
While committing himself to providing food for the family, and to wipe his mother’s tears coupled with schooling then, Renneh recalled he was told by his neighbours that he wouldn’t make it academically.
To prove his neighbours wrong, he had to intensify his efforts at school until he successfully completed, even though he had lost his mother a week before he sat to the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), which, Sanyang admitted, had a long-standing impact on him, academically and socially.
“I used to divide the money I obtained from the work and spent part of it on the family and kept the other part to pay my school fees. However, when I moved to the upper basic school, my neighbours said I wouldn’t make it. Their negative words motivated me to move on, to fight very hard. This is why I said I am very proud of myself today,’’ the determined young man told this medium.
Meanwhile, following his graduation from Senior Secondary School, Sanyang got enrolled at The Gambia College in 2013 to pursue Higher Teachers’ Certificate specializing in Physical Health Education and Arts and Craft. He is currently attending the University of The Gambia (UTG) pursuing a course in Development Studies.
Meantime, in his mind mom’s memory still lingers, recollecting the promises he had made to her that, he would one day become a graduate and they would enjoy the fruit of his labour, together.
