cell anaemia. His twin sister, Sheri, was slightly luckier -- she has the trait but not the full-blown disease.

"It is inherited,'' the teenager explains. "My mother has sickle cell, and my father has the trait.'' In this disease, if the sickle cell gene is inherited from one parent and the gene for normal HbA from the other, the child has the trait, which is harmless and cannot become the disease. If, on the other hand, the HbS gene is inherited from both parents, the child has the disease. (See separate story for full facts).

While Mr. Burgess admits that sickle cell anaemia has impacted on his life -- he cannot participate vigorously in any sport, for example, because he tires easily -- he has learned to live with its ups and downs.

Because his immune system is weakened, he is susceptible to colds and 'flu, and has battled pneumonia five times.

"I am in hospital at least twice a year, sometimes for days, weeks or months,'' he says. "My sister hasn't even been sick.'' Naturally, such bouts proved disruptive to his schooling, but as with everything in his young life, Sotunji learned to cope. Either his sister or someone else would bring him schoolwork.

Formerly a student at Northlands and the Berkeley Institute, the teenager is currently enrolled at the Bermuda College, where he is studying for his associate in Arts degree prior to enrolling in the University of Kent law programme.

"I like to study, and my ultimate goal is to become a lawyer,'' he says. "I plan to go to England to finish up my Bachelor of Arts degree, and then go on to law school.'' The good news is that, not only does the eager student have his family's full support but also the Sickle Cell Foundation of Bermuda has awarded him a scholarship.

"They are going to help me all the way through,'' he says proudly.

"We plan to provide him with a support system that we hope will enable him to lead a productive and independent adult life,'' Foundation spokesperson Donaldo Laurenceo III says.

Despite never having been to England before, Sotunji has no qualms about striking out on his own when the time comes. Instead, the goal-oriented young man just sees its capricious climate, amongst other things, as a challenge to meet and dispatch. He is already used to bundling up warmly in winter, and is confident that he will be able to work around the difficult days when his disease flares up.

But then Sotunji is a fighter who never takes his eyes off his ultimate goal.

"After law school I plan to come back to Bermuda, and hopefully I will have my own law firm one day,'' he says.

Certainly he is unafraid of work. For a time, between leaving CedarBridge in 1998 and entering Bermuda College this year he worked as a kitchen porter, and a salesman, but came to the conclusion he was unfulfilled.

"I just decided to go back to school because I wanted more out of life,'' he says of the scholastic move.

While the demands of his associate degree programme include studying English, mathematics, economics and history, in his spare time Sotunji loves to read novels, and his favourite author is John Grisham.

To other young people living with a disease or disability, the soft-spoken Bermudian has this advice: "Don't let it stop you from what you want to be, or what you want to do in life. Always pursue your goals.'' Asked if he had just one wish in life, what it would be, Sotunji replies unhesitatingly: "To be successful in what I want to do.''