REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE AT THE YOUNG SOCIAL INNOVATORS OF THE YEAR AWARDS, CITYWEST, DUBLIN
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE AT THE YOUNG SOCIAL INNOVATORS OF THE YEAR AWARDS, CITYWEST, DUBLIN, THURSDAY, 13th MAY, 2004
Dia dhíbh a cháirde.
It’s good to be here today to join in celebrating the achievements of some remarkable young people – young people who want to make a difference in their communities, as problem solvers, as people who create rather than wait for opportunities. For the last two years I have had the immense pleasure of welcoming the winning Young Social Innovators team to the Áras. This year I am very grateful to Sr. Stanislaus Kennedy, founder of the competition, for her kind invitation to meet with all of the participants – congratulations to you all and thank you for your warm welcome.
An awards ceremony is always a happy occasion, when the fruits of many days and months of hard work are acknowledged and celebrated. But when that ceremony is concerned with social awareness education, the occasion has a special added significance because the benefits stretch far beyond the successful individual, bringing hope to the marginalized, challenging the complacent and putting fresh energy into the search for pathways to full social inclusion. It is reassuring and heartwarming to witness how the Young Social Innovators competition harnesses the energy and the idealism of our Transition Year students in a way that would be hard to equal.
What gives us more hope for a future where “all the nation’s children are cherished equally”, to quote the 1916 Proclamation than watching our young men and women committing their talents, genius, skills and ideas and energies to help create a better, more caring, more compassionate, society. The Young Social Innovators is a lot more than simply a competition. It is a chance to look more deeply at our world and its needs and a challenge to find answers instead of becoming mere reciters of the problems. That it is run under the auspices of Social Innovations Ireland, whose chairperson is the highly respected Sr. Stanislaus Kennedy of Focus Ireland speaks volumes. Indeed, the aims and objectives of this enterprise draw their inspiration from the founding philosophy of Sr. Stanislaus which has at its heart the elimination of social injustice and the helping of the poor, the under-privileged, and the marginalized in society to participate fully in “life’s banquet”, to quote Pope Paul VI.
Each and every participant here today deserves recognition for what they have achieved and I am certainly very impressed by what I have seen. From child poverty to child labour, from drug abuse to disability your comprehensive and sympathetic awareness is evident and you have shown that no matter how great or difficult the issues, you are people of courage who can change things for the better.
Our country is prosperous and successful as never before. We have known bad times and hopelessness and some of our brothers and sisters still do. We have an ambition set out in the Proclamation and in our Constitution to create a just and equal society where the dignity of all is our guiding principle and true social order our destination. We need champions in each generation to keep on pushing and shoving us down the path to that destination.
For four years now the Young Social Innovators Competition has created those champions and now with the Leinster and Munster regions for the first time we have an army of 2,000 students from over 100 schools, well equipped to counteract the cult of individualism and the lure of selfishness through their voluntary endeavour in the service of others.
About two years ago, the findings of an EU survey on social attitudes depicted a world of increasing materialism and individualism, where young people were more interested in going to the pub and the gym than in becoming involved in their local communities. Such findings suggest a shallow attitude to life, where living self-indulgently in the ‘here and now’ has become the creed of so many. In the company of our Young Social Innovators we can hold our heads high. They make us proud. They have travelled the uncomfortable road and dug deep inside themselves to find the values and the courage needed to finish the journey. There is a saying – “test your friends before you need them”. These young people have voluntarily submitted to serious tests and we know now that they are stronger and better equipped to deal with life in all its complexity and to be sources of resilience and creativity in their families, workplaces and communities.
To everyone who helped these young people along the way to where they are today, and in particular the Transition Year Teachers, comhghairdeachas libhse freisin.
Go maire sibh. Go raibh maith agaibh.