REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE LAUNCH OF “2005 AWARENESS PROGRAMME”
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE LAUNCH OF “2005 AWARENESS PROGRAMME” DUNDALK EMPLOYMENT PARTNERSHIP THURSDAY 3RD FEBRUARY
Dia dhíbh go léir. Tá áthas orm bheith anseo libh i Dún Dealgan inniu. Míle bhuíochas díbh as an fáilte a thug sibh dom.
It is good to be in Dundalk today to launch the Dundalk Employment Partnership “2005 Awareness Programme”. My thanks to John Butler for inviting me to share this occasion with you, to meet with you all and to launch this hugely important initiative designed to strengthen community by harnessing in the most efficient way all the efforts of its community activists, its community builders.
You are lucky that here in Dundalk you have a vibrant community and voluntary sector with over 100 groups dealing with the litany of problems and possibilities which everyday life creates. Inequality and social exclusion throw up plenty of challenges, from long-term unemployment, to racism, from domestic violence to disability and mental health and much more besides. Initiatives to deal with these issues often start over a kitchen table and develop in fits and starts and struggles into confident support services. Today many community and voluntary groups in Dundalk have gone that journey and they do excellent work for disadvantaged people and communities in the area. But now you want to begin the process of joining the dots, of engaging each of these groups in a dialogue with the rest to ensure that all that wisdom, skill and experience which is unique to each group can be shared and that the perspective of each group can be revealed to the other and to the public, widening their understanding of what is happening within community.
Despite the great advances we have made in this country in the last decade and more, there are still many on the margins – those who struggle daily with poverty, those who have met closed doors because of lack of education or racism or disability, those who have had to endure abuse or the prejudice of others. It is how we treat those people, it is how we succeed at bringing those from the margins into the mainstream that will shape history’s account of us as a caring or uncaring society – one that treasures all its children equally and assures the dignity of the individual as enshrined in our Constitution or one that tolerates if not promotes irresponsible individualism.
This 2005 Awareness Programme is an inspiring example to others of responsible and good citizenship. Your approach is an imaginative and well-thought-out one - highlighting specific issue based topics for month long exhibitions. With the involvement of the relevant groups, it will raise the profile of your work, raise awareness of important social issues and encourage effective networking. I hope that everybody, from transition year and college students, support agencies to local businesses, and the people from the town and surrounding areas will come to see and learn from the exhibitions, that they will grow in pride in their community and its great heart and that they will commit to serving and strengthening the community in their own lives.
Nurturing and celebrating commitment to community and in particular encouraging inclusion and self-belief among the most marginalised is the greatest of civic responsibilities. Everyone whose potential is wasted is a huge loss to the individual, family, community and country. Every investment made in that individual is also an investment in all of us. Local people themselves are best placed to identify their needs and the best answers emerge when they are at the heart of partnership and decision-making. Community is where we see each other’s problems but we do not give up on each other. Community is where the passion and imagination and sustaining energy to change things for the better are found. That basic resource of care and concern for one another is the basic building block of community. Build it into an alliance with local and central government, with the statutory and other agencies, with the business sector and the public and you have a formidable alliance.
I heartily commend the Community Office of the Partnership, for their work in both developing this Awareness Programme and the ongoing provision of supports for the community and voluntary groups of the area. I hope it will put a fresh heart and fresh hope into all that you do and while none of it is done for praise or thanks, you and all those you represent richly deserve both.
Is iontach an obair atá ar siúl agaibh anseo. Go n-éirí go geal libh. Go raibh míle, míle maith agaibh.