REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT A CELEBRATION OF LEARNING THROUGH THE ARTS IN BREAKING THE CYCLE
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT A CELEBRATION OF LEARNING THROUGH THE ARTS IN BREAKING THE CYCLE SCHOOLS NATIONAL CONCERT HALL
Cuireann sé áthas ar mo chroí bheith anseo libh anocht agus tá mé buíoch díbh as an chuireadh as as fáilte fíorchaoin a chur sibh romham.
There is a Breaking The Cycle school in Dublin which has as its motto ‘shoot for the moon, even if you miss you’ll land among the stars’. Tonight we are most definitely among the stars, but we didn’t miss the moon either thanks to the incredibly talented boys and girls of the Breaking the Cycle schools initiative.
This is a wonderful occasion, a celebration of the achievements of the schools which participated in Breaking the Cycle. I visited many of them during the Millennium Year and as the video clip testifies they were buzzing with the energy, hard-work and hope.
There is a new mood in our country. These are great times to be young in Ireland. There are opportunities today which no other generation has known. Now we have a sacred responsibility to ensure that in this republic of equals, the gifts and talents of all our children get a chance to shine, to fully light up their lives.
Every human person is born with potential. When it is unlocked, when it flows freely, when a child grows confident in his or her own capabilities you have a strong citizen, a good neighbour, a fine work colleague. When that potential is not unlocked, when it is never looked for or never found, you have a life half-lived, a person who never knows him or herself fully, a person who never gets the chance to show friends, family, community or country what a contribution they are capable of making.
One of the saddest things in life is wasted potential. Yet it does happen and for a whole variety of reasons. We meet the kids who have drifted too early out of school. We meet the frustrated adults whose lives are skewed by underachievement. And every time we meet them we ask how can we stop this cycle of disadvantage? How can we help to open those wonderful lives, to help them blossom as God intended. And we know that for so many of those young teenagers or adults the die was cast, in those early childhood years, years which were not used well and which set them on a journey into a cul de sac. They say “what is learned in childhood is engraved on stone”.
When the engravers did my grandfathers headstone they made a small mistake in the date. I asked if it could be rectified simply and was shocked to learn the only way to rectify it was to replace it. We do not get that chance with children. If the engraver makes a mistake it may well be a mistake for life. We get one go around and Breaking the Cycle is about getting the engraving absolutely right - using all the resources these early years offer, getting them working together, making sure they work really well so that our children move easily and confidently through the world of education, so that they find school a place of terrific adventure where they begin to see themselves as achievers whether in music, sport, science, reading, art, being a good friend, being a real trier.
Breaking the Cycle is not just about making sure our young people have the education to get decent jobs though that is part of it, it is fundamentally about making communities stronger through making individuals stronger. It is about making Irish civic life healthy and robust because our people lead lives enriched by their faith in themselves. Breaking the Cycle is about introducing every child to his or her own empowerment.
This is extraordinary work. It is an investment in the child’s future but it is an investment in Ireland’s future too. Every bridge built to a vulnerable child, every young person helped to grow in self-respect, every child encouraged to build a new skill, to grow into a person of character, resolve and determination, every one of these things is a gift to the rest of us, for the prize is a life lived to its full potential, the most rewarding prize of all.
In my visits to the Breaking the Cycle schools, I saw, at first hand, the tremendous efforts of the school communities to provide positive learning experiences for every child helping them to develop a sense of confidence and self worth. Teachers adapted programmes or created new projects all designed to fire young imaginations so even the children who could be a little shy or withdrawn "came out of themselves" often during the course of arts related activities. The enthusiasm of teachers was palpable. But that is not where the enthusiasm ended. Parents are vital partners in Breaking the Cycle and everywhere I went they were in the middle of things, participating in school activities and bringing the values of Breaking the Cycle into the home, wrapping the child up in this huge surge of effort to change the future.
A lot of people have invested their hands, their hearts, their hopes in Breaking the Cycle. Top of the list has to be Maura Grant who coordinated the project like a woman possessed and she was, possessed, obsessed by the belief that we had the talented teachers, we had the determined parents, we had the political will, we had the communal resources to introduce these children to the future we all wish for them and know they are as capable of as they are entitled to. Maura’s faith and the faith of every investor in this initiative, government, Department of Education and Science, teachers, ancillary school staff, parents, communities, has been rewarded here tonight. Breaking the Cycle has always been about these children, about faith in them and in their gifts.
Tonight we take pleasure in applauding the boys and girls of Breaking the Cycle who worked so hard to bring us this fabulous showcase of talent. I would like to congratulate them and everyone who worked with them to make tonight’s event such a success. We are very proud of each and every one of you and we are sure, very sure that each of you is already creating your own great future.
Go raibh míle maith agaibh