REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE OFFICIAL OPENING OF THE YOUTH HOMELESS DRUG PREVENTION PROJECT
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE OFFICIAL OPENING OF THE YOUTH HOMELESS DRUG PREVENTION PROJECT ON BEHALF OF THE CORK SIMON
Tá mé buíoch díbh as an chuireadh a thug sibh dom teacht anseo inniu agus as fáilte chaoin a chur sibh romham.
Many thanks for this opportunity to join on this special day of hope and action when we launch the Youth Homeless Drug Prevention Project. Last year, I launched the Cuas Response for the Dublin Simon Community so knowing how closely Cork counts the score, I wouldn’t have dared to turn down Patricia McAllister’s very kind invitation.
The name of Simon, no matter where we hear it, stands for something that is deeply important and greatly needed in today’s society. It stands for a rejection of complacency, a belief that change is always possible, the certainty that every human being is deserving of respect and is entitled to the means to live a humanly decent life. Simon challenges us to rethink easy assumptions about homelessness and about the people behind the label ‘homeless’, their needs, their problems, their aspirations, their dreams. For the past 30 years, the Cork Simon Community has been dealing with the reality of homelessness as it exists, with insight, imagination and determination.
Sadly, in these days of increasing prosperity, homelessness, its causes and consequences, has not gone away. Indeed it is on the rise, a salutary warning that not all of our people have benefited from our economic success. Too many remain on the margins, their exclusion all the more unacceptable at a time when the rest of society has so much and expects so much. A very real test of what type of society we want to hand on to our children lies in the decisions we make now to tackle problems such as poverty, homelessness and the despair of drug addiction. This generation has the resource, the insight and the power to eliminate inequality and exclusion- history will judge if it had the imagination, the leadership and the will to make it happen.
Here in Simon, you need no lessons in the power of imagination, or in the commitment, the dogged commitment and hard work it takes to make real, that world you dare to imagine. Some of the initiatives that I have just seen, such as the Supported Flats and the Crafts Project, are fine examples of that – offering hope to people who had lost all hope, allowing them to rediscover their own talents and capabilities, proving to them that it is possible to escape the trap of homelessness and despair.
This Youth Homeless Drug Prevention Project is another example of how Simon is responding to the ever- changing face of homelessness in Ireland. The project recognises that homelessness is more complex than not having a roof over your head – it means that you become an outsider, with no key to get on the inside. On the inside people have houses, addresses, telephone numbers, neighbours, communities, networks of support which look out for them because they belong. When you are homeless it is easy to believe you do not belong anywhere. Access to services, training and employment, doctors, treatment for addiction, all become more problematic when you inhabit that outsider place. Simon and its sister organizations exist to create bridges from the outside to the inside.
We know that with homelessness, as with drug abuse, the earlier we can intervene, offer help and support, the better the chance of preventing a lifetime of misery and wasted opportunities. But prevention only works if it reaches its target, if it reaches the young people who are sleeping rough. That is why this Project is so important, using outreach workers and targeting emergency shelters to bring one-to-one support and advice to young people at risk. It offers hope that through early intervention, an alternative life can be provided for young people, before the cycle of homelessness and addiction takes hold. We are all losers in a society where some are outsiders and others are insiders. We are diminished as a people when the talents of some are left to go to waste.
I warmly commend the project co-ordinator, James Boyd, and everyone involved in the project, for your hard work over the past six months. As with all great initiatives, it has already proven its worth before it’s even officially launched. I would also like to pay tribute to the Young People’s Facilities Services Fund and the Irish Youth Foundation for the substantial funding they are providing to the project. I wish everyone involved, but especially the young people whom the project is aimed at, every success in the coming years. Why did anyone bother to put this project together? The answer is simple. It is because there are people who do deeply care about each human life and who are determined that we cannot give up on each other.
May I congratulate everyone who is contributing to the extraordinary work of the Cork Simon Community. I am grateful, as are so many others, that your spirit of selflessness exists and flourishes as strongly as it does. Your dedication and decency are the fuel which help us to imagine and create a more caring and inclusive world- with space for everyone.
Go maire sibh. Go raibh maith agaibh.