Wakenaam-born Guyanese Naresh Jagnanan has urged fellow University of the West Indies graduates to carry the Caribbean unity they experienced on campus into their careers and communities.

Jagnanan graduated with First-Class Honours after pursuing a double major in Economics and Political Science at the university’s St. Augustine campus in Trinidad and Tobago.

An Economic and Financial Analyst at Guyana’s Ministry of Finance, he is also preparing for graduate studies, with offers from the University of Oxford, the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Imperial College London.

Delivering the 2026 Faculty of Social Sciences valedictory address, he said university life demonstrated how students from different Caribbean territories could build lasting relationships across national and cultural boundaries.

“At UWI, we did not simply study the Caribbean; we experienced it,” he told graduates.

Drawing on the Mighty Sparrow’s message, “All Ah We Is One Family,” Jagnanan reflected on the friendships and cultural exchanges that brought students from different territories together. He described a Caribbean small in geographical size but substantial in influence, rich in culture despite its challenges, and connected by a common history even where borders divide its people.

Those connections, he argued, must help shape the region’s response to climate change, economic uncertainty and rapid technological development. Jagnanan said the Caribbean’s history of confronting difficult circumstances had fostered resilience and creativity. The next generation, he added, now has a responsibility to use those strengths to shape the region’s future. He urged graduates not to let the size of their home countries limit their ambitions or the contributions they could make through leadership, service and purposeful action.

For Jagnanan, who hails from Wakenaam in Guyana’s Essequibo River, progress must also be measured by the opportunities it creates for people and whether prosperity reaches communities across the Caribbean. His appeal extended beyond individual achievement. He called on graduates to recognise their shared responsibility for a region whose people face many of the same pressures and hold similar aspirations.

Invoking the university’s motto, “Light Rising from the West,” Jagnanan urged the graduating class to carry its ideals into their professions and communities, building on the relationships formed during their studies to help create a stronger Caribbean.