Damion Daley says that a career in farming was the norm for many children in Spur Tree, the Manchester community where he spent his formative years.

However, Daley, driven by big dreams and a burning curiosity as to what life could be like outside his small farming community, refused to trade higher education for working in the fields, so he juggled long hours with gruelling study to successfully pursue a career in computer science.

“I’ve always believed that there was more to life. Our community is shadowed by elders who believe that farming and working for other persons in the community is good enough, and I started out to really prove and be the highlight of that particular community to say, ‘Hey. someone from here can head on the big stages as well’,” Daley told the Jamaica Observer.

After graduating from Mayday High School Daley plunged head first into farming with one goal
— to use the funds he acquired to enrol at University of Technology, Jamaica (UTech) to pursue a degree in computer science.

His prayers were answered when his application was accepted, and he moved to Kingston in 2015 to pursue his studies.

Though he had limited educational background on the subject and didn’t know where this journey would take him, Daley said he knew that his chosen career would ease his family’s financial burdens and allow them to have a better life.

So, he took a leap of faith.

But hurdles were ahead and his dreams were almost shattered during his first year of university.

“I struggled to grasp the underlying concepts in computer programming such as introductory programming. All those things were so foreign to me that I really struggled to understand what was going on around me,” the now 27-year-old Daley told the Sunday Observer.

“There were times when I was in three to four different tutorials for one course because I could not understand and I didn’t believe at the time that one class was good enough, so I was attending up to three different classes for the same subject just to ensure that I am grasping the stuff,” he explained.

With his grade point average slipping, his hope of a better life seemed far-fetched, but a phone call with his mother was all he needed to light the fire within him.

Mom, Dina Scott, recalled her son calling her in tears during his first year, questioning whether he should forfeit his dream and return home.

“He said to me, ‘Mommy, it’s so hard I cannot manage,’ and I said, ‘Son, anything you put your mind to, you can do it. You have started it, you will finish. However, some people send their children to university, some come out and some don’t’. I said, ‘Before university mad you and take you away from me, come home’. He started to cry, and he said, ‘No, Mommy, I want this because I want to help you’,” Scott related.

That conversation proved to be a turning point in Daley’s life as it gave him the courage needed to press on in his quest.

“In the summer, I would go on the work and travel programme, and I would come to the [United] States and I would work two, three, sometimes four different jobs to support myself,” he told the Sunday Observer.

“It was daunting for me when I returned to school, because my body would be so tired from working extensively in the summer. In the semester, I would experience a lot of fatigue, but I managed to pull through, and I never failed a single course at UTech,” he said.

“I remember listening to this motivational speaker, and he was basically mentioning that it’s better to aim high and miss than to aim low and hit. So I held that methodology to just aim high, as high as possible,” Daley said.

In 2019, through sheer determination and hard work, he completed his degree in computer science, graduating with honours.

An elated Scott said she was happy to learn of her son’s success because she knew he was destined for greatness and she always wanted a better life for her children.

She recalled countless nights when she, her son, and her daughter would sit in the living room, all studying for their Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) exams.

“When it was math time we were all studying together, and when they saw that I was getting formulas better than them they said, ‘Mommy, it’s time for you to go to sleep’, and when I go and lay down they team up and on the floor studying and I said, ‘Okay, that’s what you doing, sending me to bed and then unnuh studying’,” the mother said laughing.

“As a single parent, it was rough, but I’m telling you, prayer works. I am encouraging every mother to speak life over their children, pray over their children, pray for them, pray with them and pray through it; encourage them, and be there for them because had it not been for the Lord on my side, who taught me to be a good mother, and to push them, maybe they would have still been in the community,” she said, fighting back tears.

After graduating, Daley was hired as a data specialist at Digicel headquarters in downtown Kingston. He spent two years with the company, but still, he said his heart yearned for more.

“I was really looking down the road now for bigger opportunities. I said ‘Okay, maybe the overseas market is a little more enticing’, so I pretty much packed up from Jamaica and moved overseas,” he said.

Daley said that when he migrated to the United States in 2022, finding a job in his field proved to be a difficult task. He was forced to accept a job as a waiter until he could secure a better-paying job.

His prayers were answered when earlier this year he was hired as a business analyst at Knoxville Utilities Board, an electric, gas, water and wastewater services company in the US.

“There were a lot of times I broke myself just with the thought of going backward to go forward, but it’s really just understanding and believing in yourself, trusting your judgement and saying, ‘I am making this step backward but I am positive that with my plan and execution, it can take me further in the future’,” Daley said.