Regaled by his maternal grandmother about the exploits of lawyers at the Matthews Ridge Magistrate Court, a young Jensen Samaroo was so intrigued not just by the stories but the obvious admiration she had for lawyers that he resolved in his heart to become a legal luminary she would be proud of.
His desire to become a lawyer was twofold though, as while he wanted his grandmother Ivy Dawson’ s admiration, he also heard stories of people who went unrepresented because they could not afford a lawyer and he wanted to be able to help. While his journey to fulfilling that dream is still ongoing, Samaroo, who grew up in Port Kaituma, recently scored a big victory that he is still savouring: valedictorian at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine Campus. He graduated with a first-class honours degree in political science with a minor in international relations, a programme he had initially seen as a stepping stone to him entering the law faculty.
“It is certainly an honour and a privilege to have been selected as the valedictorian. I must say, however, that it is something I did not intend by any means to achieve…,” Samaroo said during a recent virtual interview with Stabroek Weekend.
He recalled that when he enrolled in 2018, his intentions were to get through the programme, immerse himself as much as possible in university life and be active in student leadership.
All of that was done and more and at the end of the three-year journey, Samaroo said he knew he was a strong candidate to become the valedictorian and as such his nomination was not a surprise. He initially intended to turn it down as the interviewing process would have clashed with his course schedule.
He was in Port Kaituma at the time on holiday and remembered having a conversation with a good friend, Chelsea James, whom he has known since nursery school. She encouraged him to go ahead and accept the nomination.
Samaroo did and he prepared the speech to be presented to the interview panel on the very day it was scheduled. The stimulus for the speech was ‘Dare to Be’ and he spoke of daring to be West Indian, which won over the panel and four days later he was informed he was selected. “For me that was a major accomplishment, because growing up in Port Kaituma I felt as though many things were excluded from me so over the years, not this alone, this, and many of the other accomplishments I had over the years, really has cemented for me the fact that almost anything that I want to achieve I can,” he said.
Often recount
Going back to his childhood days Samaroo recalled that his grandmother recounted to him and others certain court sessions she witnessed as she travelled there for different reasons. There were also some occasions when one of his uncles had brushes with the law and so his grandmother visited with him as well.
“When she would be recounting it I would be intrigued by it in two ways. One, the kind of admiration that she had for the work that the lawyers did with the cross examination and their eloquence and so on. I was very intrigued, I guess, by her admiration of them and my grandmother being someone very dear to me, I craved that admiration in some way,” Samaroo said.
The second, was when she spoke of the many people who went unrepresented because of the high fees attorneys from Georgetown would charge. He knew many of the people who went unrepresented and developed the urge to address the situation by being able to help other such people in the future.
“That is what I am working towards…,” he said, recalling that he spent his last primary school year with his grandmother as his parents had moved to the city. Among other things, she helped him to develop a love for reading as she had him reading the newspapers and recounting what he had read.
After primary school, Samaroo moved on to President’s College where he said he spent five “amazing years” years, before completing sixth form at the Bishops’ High School. It was at President’s College that he fell in love with Caribbean History and the use of the English Language. He described the years at Bishops as being a “transformative period” in his life, as it was there that his vision and passion for regional and Caribbean integration began.
He met like-minded persons and they formed the Bishops’ High School Law Society. He was one of the founders and every Friday they held sessions to discuss various topics: law, politics, economics and social affairs.
Samaroo said he had always wanted to attend the University of the West Indies, but the Mona Campus. However, a chance meeting with a Bishops’ alumna who was at St Augustine Campus saw him applying to both campuses. He was accepted at Mona to do law but when he looked at the two St Augustine was the more feasible financial option.
Even though his parents would have supported his Mona dream, he abandoned it because he knew it would have been a heavier burden for them.
A slight mix up during his registration saw him being accepted at St Augustine to read for his second option degree, political science, instead of his first choice, law.
He started political science with the intention of transferring to law that same year but almost immediately, Samaroo said, he fell in love with Caribbean politics as it was taught in a very solution-oriented manner.
“In the sense that they discussed and provoked your thoughts [on] politics and development; its relation to development and moreso the problems that exist in our societies throughout the Caribbean and how do we address those problems and almost naturally coming from a country rife with political problems, that sparked an interest…” he shared.
Even though he filled out the transfer form, in the second semester he became very active in university life and its politics at the level of student governance. Samaroo held several student-related positions, including chairperson of the International Affairs Committee and he became recognised as a very active student leader on campus.
He praised the university for giving students opportunities to grow as leaders and interact with people from throughout the Caribbean.
“I completed the degree and I really loved it,” he said, adding that a lot of it did not feel like work as he was able to discuss with his friends Caribbean politics and bring that into the university space. So much so that he was referred to as the ‘Caribbean man’. When he ran for elections, he did a speech introducing himself not as a Guyanese but as a Caribbean man born in Guyana. The line is used by many and Samaroo said it was not coined by him, but borrowed from former prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago Eric Williams. During his President’s College days, Samaroo said, he read that when Williams sent his book Capitalism and Slavery to the publisher, he asked not to be referred to as Trinidadian, but as a West Indian born in Trinidad.
“I found that to be really, really profound. That actually has shaped my thinking a lot. Like every time I am asked to introduce myself, I always say I am a Caribbean youth or Caribbean man who was born in Guyana,” the young man said.
Enrolled
Samaroo is now enrolled in the bachelor of law degree programme as becoming a lawyer never left his mind even with the added interest in political science.
He has an advantage. His first-class honours degree means he is exempt an entire year and will complete the degree in two years instead of three, even though he has a heavier course load. It does not feel like work for Samaroo who does not complain about the late night readings, as he becomes so engrossed the time flies and sleep is furthest from his mind.
“I really love the law, none of it seems like work. I get to do what I love every day and I am very thankful for that and hopefully the same would translate to when I eventually qualify to practice law as well,” he added.
After his two-year degree he intends to go on to the Hugh Wooding Law School then return to Guyana to practice law. But his ambition has widened to wanting to practice law throughout the English-speaking Caribbean because of the strong vision he has for Caribbean and regional intervention.
While he will initially do general practice, Samaroo said recently he has developed an interest in offshore law that deals with offshore banking and financing and it is an area he will look into as well as corporate and commercial law.
But of course he will do general practice initially, because of his lifelong dream to help people, and that would be part of the legal aid work he will do. He has aligned himself with a lot of people who want to do similar work.
Twenty-two-year-old Samaroo is the youngest of four children. The eldest, a sister, owns a small business; he has a brother who recently graduated as a medical doctor and his third sibling works in the family business.
His parents, David and Anavel Samaroo, were originally not from Port Kaituma but they met there as teachers. They both came from poor beginnings, but have worked to provide for their family. Samaroo said he is always reminded about the background of his family and that has kept him humble. He remembers his beloved grandmother working in her shop the day before she died on July 26, 2020, four days before his 21st birthday.
Her death was a major blow to him and his family and created a huge challenge for him going into his final year and he had to put a lot of things on pause. Even though classes were virtually, he did not attend many, but he eventually did some therapy which helped him a lot, along with supportive friends.
He describes his parents as being soft and humble individuals and he admires those attributes.
