REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE OPENING OF THE ‘CELEBRATING GETTING TO KNOW YOU’ CONFERENCE
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE OPENING OF THE ‘CELEBRATING GETTING TO KNOW YOU’ CONFERENCE THURSDAY, 30TH MARCH, 2006
Tá an-áthas orm bheith i bhur measc inniu ar an ócáid speisialta seo. Míle bhuíochas díbh as an gcuireadh agus an fáilte a thug sibh dom.
It’s good to be here today to open the ‘Celebrating Getting to Know You Conference’. My thanks to you all for that warm Donegal welcome and to the manager of Lifestart Lifford/Letterkenny, Betty Holmes, for inviting me.
My grandmother was fond of using an old proverb - What’s learnt in childhood is engraved on stone!” With eleven children and sixty grandchildren she had plenty of evidence of the central truth at the heart of that statement - that early childhood years are of critical importance. The Irish proverb - puts it well: Tús maith is leath na hoibre - a good start is half the work. Knowing that truth is not a guarantee that we will harvest its wisdom and harvesting its wisdom is what the Lifestart Foundation is all about. Here is an organization which prioritises the central role played by parents of small children and supports parents as they strive to be the best parents they can be. We raise our children within families and communities and we prepare them for membership of these complex human institutions helping them to make their own confident contribution as good and caring citizens.
Today’s children are growing up in an Ireland very different from the world which shaped their parents and their parents’ thinking. It is a fast paced, high-achieving, multi-cultural Ireland, a very testing and challenging environment in which to have responsibility for the healthy development of the next generation. To face it alone could be daunting but Lifestart offers company on the journey and this conference offers the chance to share wisdom and experience so that the pathway to better, more effective parenting is an exciting journey of discovery.
The theme of today’s conference ‘to better understand how cultures / attitudes influence how we parent today’ aims to achieve something very important to Irish society right now - to promote positive dialogue between cultures regarding parenting and family support.
Today there are people from 40 different cultures living in Letterkenny . The community is growing rapidly and was identified as a priority area for Family Support Development in 2004. The title of the Letterkenny Family Support Needs Assessment report in 2004 puts it succinctly ‘Under The Spotlight – A Growing Family In A Growing Town.’ From that “Family Action Letterkenny” was born – a body which draws its strength, energy and focus from the fact that there is inter-agency, voluntary and statutory representation on all three of the Working Groups. Now all the key voices and perspectives mingle, informing each other, working in partnership and acknowledging that no one group holds the Holy Grail of parenting but that everyone holds a unique and important piece of the jigsaw puzzle we need to assemble if we are to get the picture right. This process of listening, sharing and working together is utterly essential if we as a society are to develop the deep-rooted mutual understanding and spontaneous respect for all those living in our communities, regardless of race, religion or cultural background.
This conference not only facilitates that multi-faceted debate but celebrates Ireland’s diversity and challenges us to get busy laying the groundwork for an effortlessly comfortable multi-cultural future where sensitivity to the otherness of others is mainstreamed from the cradle.
An African proverb says that “the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago; the second best time is now”. I commend the work of the staff in the Health Service Executive, Donegal County Childcare Committee and Lifestart for their planting of a culture of healthy parenting which will bring great benefits to the Ireland of today and tomorrow. Those benefits will be evident in the lived lives of today’s children, in the way they use their talents, the way they relate to their neighbours, the way they commit to their families, communities and country.
I thank all those who were involved in organising and contributing towards this investment in Ireland’s children and thanks to each of you for being here to share, to listen and to generate the next steps on the pathway to best possible parenting. I also wish you luck in your follow up seminar, which I believe is to be held in October, 2006.
Is iontach an obair atá ar siúl agaibh. Go raibh maith agaibh.