MICHAEL MYLES: ON A MISSION TO INSPIRE CAYMAN

Staff Writer

Michael Myles is a man on a mission. From social worker, to educator, athlete and founder of the successful project Inspire Cayman, Mr Myles is now focused on directing his energies into policymaking.

For the 2025 election he is running as a candidate with the newly-formed Cayman Islands National Party(CINP).

Inspire Cayman launched by Mr Myles in 2019 has quickly established a reputation as a national resource for employment and lifeskills training including financial literacy.

The organisation which runs a series of courses has recently expanded to a new and larger facility, employs a staff of 15 and has an outreach network throughout the business community and government to offer opportunities to people on its programmes.

Inspire Cayman has trained over 800 people and has run over 12,000 courses since it was launched covering the range of skillsets required across all industries in Cayman as well as personal lifeskills training and coaching.

“What I do at Inspire is help our young people evolve,” Mr Myles told Caymanian Times editor and publisher Ralph Lewis on the current edition of the podcast Cayman Conversations.

“I can’t go back 30 years and teach them what didn’t happen 30 years ago. That doesn’t exist for us (Cayman) anymore. Our new reality is that our people have to be more competitive. Therefore I need to help them gain the skills, the knowledge and the perseverance to keep competitive.”

As explained by Mr Myles, “Cayman is on a global market so we cannot continue to teach our kids what is this locally, they have to compete globally.”

He says the Inspire Cayman venture alongside his involvement as a community organiser and activist has laid the foundation to direct his efforts at the policy-making level in Government and Parliament

After just falling short of winning a seat in the 2021 elections - he missed out by a mere 46 votes in Prospect - Mr Myles is making another pitch in politics, this time with the Cayman Islands National Party(CINP) led by Dan Scott.

Speaking passionately about the possibilities he sees for Cayman and how to overcome the challenges, he said pushed back against a narrative labelling political aspirants and those who’ve served one-term as being inexperienced.

According to Mr Myles, his track record stands up to scrutiny compared to some other serving politicians.

“I laugh when I hear this thing about experience, because I’m wondering how they got experience? When I hear this ‘you don’t have experience’, you know what they’re saying? They are saying exactly what a lot of companies say to our young people? That’s all they’re doing. They’re mirroring exactly that. How we have become outnumbered in Cayman is because of those same people.”

The Cayman Islands National Party(CINP) candidate, then threw the gauntlet down to his political opponents saying many of them have not achieved anything outside of government, adding that even in government their record is one of failure.

“Here’s what I’m asking them: Show me where they’ve lowered the cost of living; show me where they’ve made healthcare more affordable; show me where housing is more affordable for Caymanians; show me where the flooding that’s happening in our community has been fixed. And then let’s talk about experience.”

Putting it in no uncertain tones, Mr Myles declared: “I don’t give a crap about experience. What I care about is outcomes.”