Muhammed Sanneh was an orphan when he left The Gambia aged 16 to try and find a way to support his two younger siblings.
They had all been living with his grandmother in the northern town of Basse, where life was a struggle.
Five-and-a-half years later, the young migrant - who prefers to go by his childhood nickname of Lexy - lives on the Italian island of Sicily, where he is fluent in Italian and has been fostered by a local family.
His Italian foster parents say he is the son they had always hoped for but never had.
In fact, it was his two foster sisters who badgered their parents to foster him after admiring his dance moves at a reception camp where he had ended up after being rescued by Italian lifeguards on the Mediterranean in August 2015 following a traumatic and arduous nine-month journey from The Gambia.
It was a camp for migrant minors in Agrigento, which was run by his parents-to-be, Antonio and Giusella Ferraro.
He was fostered through a process in Italy known as "affidemento" whereby a child is placed in the family or home of a government-certified caregiver or foster parent.
Lexy's story is not unique, some Italians in recent years have used this process to formally foster some of the thousands of unaccompanied minors arriving from countries such as Nigeria, Mali, The Gambia and Senegal.
Sharing a love of football and cooking
And in Lexy's case, it has proved to be no half-way house.
The 22 year old has become an integral part of the close-knit Ferraro family over the last four years.
I'd been in touch with him for a while through a mutual friend and had been intrigued to see his stream of positive social media posts about his new family - sharing photos like that of him and his foster father beaming as they proudly wore Barcelona FC T-shirts to cheer on their favourite player Lionel Messi.
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