ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE ON THE OCCASION OF THE CELEBRATION OF NATIONAL WRITE-A-BOOK PROJECT
ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE ON THE OCCASION OF THE CELEBRATION OF NATIONAL WRITE-A-BOOK PROJECT TUESDAY, 5 JUNE, 2001
Is mór an onóir agus pléisiúir dom bheith anseo libh inniú agus go raibh maith agaibh as fáilte fiorchaoin a chur romham.
I am very pleased to join with you this afternoon in celebrating the National Write-a-Book Project and I owe a special thank you to Caroline Quinn from the Blackrock Education Centre inviting me.
This is a wonderful occasion, a celebration of the achievements of pupils, teachers and parents who have together created an environment of encouragement for this project. The small seed first sown by Alice Quinn and Sean O’Leary in the 1980’s has blossomed right around the island North and South. It is a particular joy to welcome the pupils, teachers and guests from Edenbrook Primary School, close to where I was brought up in Belfast who are taking part for the second time. I know we all hope you will have a great time in Dublin.
These are great times to be young in Ireland. There are opportunities today which no other generation has known. But opportunities have to be recognised and used well. The greatest resource we have on this island is the genius of the people who live here. We as parents and educators understand the responsibility we all have to ensure that the gifts and talents of all our children get a chance to shine, to fully light up their lives. When those gifts and talents are unlocked, when they are allowed to flow freely, when a child grows confident in his or her own capabilities you have a strong citizen, a good neighbour, a fine work colleague. You may even have another gifted writer to join the list of writers for which this island is famous the world over.
Mol an óige agus tiochfaidh si - says the old Irish proverb. Praise the young and they will flourish and many a writer has told how the support of a sympathetic teacher inspired them to develop their skill. Muriel Spark the author of ‘The Prime Time of Ms. Jean Brodie’ wrote “To me education is a leading out of what is already there in the pupil’s soul.”
So many human beings remain in ignorance of their own gifts, they never get the chance or take the chance to find out what they are made of but that is not true of the children who are involved this project. Teachers and parents have nurtured their creativity through praise, encouragement and gentle suggestions. You have given them the self-confidence to take the risk of writing for of course once you publish what you have written to another human being you have an audience and not everyone is comfortable with an audience at first. Today’s audience is in awe of the work produced by our young boys and girls and because we now know what they are capable of because we have seen it with our own eyes, we know that these young people can make good decisions about their future, can build lives to be very proud of.
The Write-a-Book project is fundamentally about introducing every child to his or her own empowerment. The children here today have given unique expression to their story, recording their emotional and imaginative experiences in their own individual style. Another example of how learning is for life is captured in the magnificent work completed by ten senior citizens here today – well done. For many of you this is your first book and now you know the thrill of finishing such a big project; you know the pleasure of achieving a very big task. You know you are capable of setting yourself a target and getting there. You know it takes effort and you know you have the courage to do whatever it takes. You are doers, achievers and those skills you can bring to all sorts of things in your lives and I am sure that some of you will go on to write many more books.
The success of the Write-a-Book project, with the support of the National Reading Initiative is in these stories which lay quietly, silent, inside these young people and are now told out loud through their writing. No two stories are the same. Each one challenges us to accept with joy the enormous diversity all around us, to be grateful for it and to encourage curiosity about it. What better way than that to encourage us to write our own story and to read the stories of others.
I would like to warmly commend everyone involved in the ‘Write a Book Project’ - in particular Séamus Ó Canainn, the Director of Blackrock Education Centre who has been pivotal to the enduring success of this project, and Caroline Quinn, the national director who has managed to enthuse others by her energy and commitment. Yours is important work, much of it done behind the scenes, a lot of it hard, relentless slog until a day like this makes it all worthwhile. It can be very difficult to maintain enthusiasm when the demands of the school curriculum, the television and a hundred other things compete for a child’s attention. That is why your initiative in building up this project is doubly commendable. It is a crucial investment in young lives, in their talent and in their futures. I would like to thank you for all you have done to date, and wish you every success in all you plan in the years ahead.
Go n-éirí go geal libh. Go raibh maith agaibh.