December 2013


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Let us take this opportunity to commemorate the fact that sitting in our midst this afternoon are students of the Faculty of Law, of The University of the West Indies, St Augustine campus; the faculty and campus that I am privileged to have been a part of. Today is monumental for us, since we are the first class to have completed three years of the Bachelor of Law degree programme, and to have graduated from the Faculty of Law at the St Augustine Campus of The University of the West Indies! My friends, history is being made on this very evening.

One of my favourite quotes is: “To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.”

My fellow graduates, the very day that we step foot unto the soil of The University of the West Indies, served as an indication to the world, that we had a vision to pursue greatness. But as a wise author once said: “Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world.”

I am certain that we have all learnt that our pursuit of greatness was not an easy task. It required relentless diligence and determination. That meant rolling off our beds and rushing up to UWI every time there was a lecture or a tutorial (even if it was just for one hour), and even when we felt that coming to class was the last thing we wanted to do.

What about exams? Do you remember the times we studied, and studied, and burnt that midnight oil? Well, actually for us Law and Engineering students we didn’t just burn the midnight oil, we burnt pretty much everything else ...until we ourselves got burnt out! But nevertheless we kept climbing, and we pulled through.

But a vision without faith is like a seed without water. I am sure that we learnt that yes, we may have had the dream, and yes, we were working towards it, but if our faith was not embedded in the process, then many of us, including myself would have given up along the way. As the renowned [US] President Ronald Reagan once said, “We are never defeated unless we give up on God.” We can all speak for ourselves about how difficult this journey was, with many challenges along the way, but our faith kept us until today, and it will keep us for the rest of our lives. Thus, today before we celebrate ourselves and our achievements, and before we honour anyone else, we must give thanks unto God for without Him, we are nothing.

Today we are at the mountaintop, and the view is magnificent, but we will not forget to say thank you to our parents and our family members who have helped us to reach to this summit. We thank them for understanding the complexities of this journey, and for giving us all the support that we needed to keep running this race.

Today we pay tribute to our beloved lecturers at the Faculties of Engineering and Law who cultivated the ground of our mind with seeds of knowledge, so that we can now take and change the world before us. Not only did they teach us, but always took the time to listen to us. They even took the time to wake us up when we were deep in sleep in an important lecture. Dear lecturers, you will never be forgotten by the class of 2013 and your influence in our lives will last a lifetime.

To our administrative staff, we are grateful to you. Thank you for always being pleasant and patient with us, with our loads of questions every day, even those that didn’t make sense. We will definitely miss you.

My fellow graduates, today we are at one of our mountaintops, and we take pride in our success, but we will not forget the climb that came with this mountain. We must not forget the saying: “We shall eat the fruit of our labour.” Hence, today we are celebrating all of our relentless pursuits coming to fruition.

But I ask you to remember this, that a treasure chest of potential has been placed inside of you to affect this world; in tremendous ways that you cannot even begin to imagine. Always be mindful that the certificate in your hand is just a symbol of who you were born to be, the real you is inside. This degree that we walk out of these doors with today cannot do anything, except sit in a beautiful frame in our office; you are the change that the world is waiting for.

As we burst through these doors here today, and after we have celebrated, remember to take the robe off, and put the certificate away, and come back to reality—that we are not any different from anyone else, we are just ordinary people who are destined to make a difference. Never let the opulence of your career, or the people you meet, take away your focus from what you believe. Never let the lust for wealth become an objective. Never allow anything or anyone to take away your passion to make a difference.

Always remember that while you climb your mountain, as long as you keep focused, and do what is right, then you are a champion, despite what people may say or think. Welcome your critics; don’t be intimidated by them, because I have learnt that the majority of persons who criticize you are the very same persons who are threatened by you. As a great writer once said, “We are not champions because we win, we win because we are champions.”

After the celebration is over, and after we have exuberated in our success, let us remember to descend from our mountaintop, and survey the landscape for the next mountain; for we must be mindful that the journey to success never ends. There is always another dream to be dreamt, there is always another mountain to climb, there is always another victory to achieve. So we can be certain, that with God taking the lead, and we following obediently along, there is no reason to fear, because He has taken this journey already, and so He knows where our destiny lies.

And so my fellow graduates today we reminisce, today we celebrate, but tomorrow, we must dream again.

This is the valedictory address given to graduates of the Faculties of Engineering and Law, UWI, St Augustine, on October 24, 2013.