University honour

FRIDAY, JUNE 8: Digicel CEO Wayne Caines’s commencement address at a prestigious university in the US was a real family affair — his niece Deshay graduated along nine other Bermudians.

Mr Caines – who graduated from Oakwood University in Alabama in 1993 – said he had been honoured to be asked to speak at the university’s graduation ceremony.

He watched as Deshay Caines, daughter of his twin, Government PR chief Dwayne Caines, got a double major in Business and History.

A total of 30 members of the family travelled to Huntsville, home of the 116-year-old historically black college, from the island and elsewhere in the US to watch nearly 400 students graduated in front of an audience of more than 15,000 people.

Mr Caines said: “I was humbled to have the opportunity to speak at the graduation – I wanted to motivate the students, call them to action and allow them to see the difference they can make in a global context.”

Mr Caines told students at the ceremony last month that – despite gaining a law degree in England in 1996 and passing the bar exams – he had been unable to find a job in the law in Bermuda.

He said that – in order to help keep his wife and small daughter – he had taken a job as a night shift orderly in a care home for the elderly.

Mr Caines said: I was required to be disciplined, fastidious and indeed quite humble – I would often get deeply vexed when my colleagues called me ‘the most qualified orderly in Bermuda’.”

But he added a chance meeting in Dorothy’s coffee shop in Hamilton with the then-Director of Public Prosecutions  – who was stunned that he had not managed to secure a job in his profession - led to a job offer days later as a Crown Counsel.

But he said: “I learned more in that six months washing floors and giving sponge baths than I have in the last 15 years of my other careers.”

And he quoted W.E.B. Dubois, a heroic US campaigner for civil rights but who also fought for human rights globally, who spoke about “ the talented 10th” who could change the world.

He told the students: “You are the brightest and the best we have to offer a world that is on the brink of social, economic, environmental and spiritual disaster. You are the legacy of every founder, alumnus, administrator and faculty member to a world that needs people who are ready to serve the world as agents of change.”