REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE ON THE OCCASION OF CONCERN’S MILLENIUM RE-UNION BURLINGTON HOTEL
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE ON THE OCCASION OF CONCERN'S MILLENIUM RE-UNION BURLINGTON HOTEL, SATURDAY, 23 SEPTEMBER, 2000
Is cúis mhór áthais dom bheith anseo libh inniu ag an ócaid specialta seo. Tá mé buíoch díbh as an chuireadh agus an fáilte fíorchaoin a chur sibh romham.
I am delighted to join you this evening at this very special reunion to celebrate the work of Concern and its volunteers over the past thirty years. I would like to thank you for inviting me to share this celebration with you.
You have much to celebrate this evening – your spirit of compassion, love and care that motivates you, your great sense of achievement when you know that you personally have made a difference to the life of another human being. How wonderful it must be to realise that your work, your efforts, has helped to literally save lives and to alleviate the suffering of people who are living in the most desperate situations.
You are truly a unique group of individuals and the rich store of memories and experiences you share has bonded you to each other in very special ways. I know that this is a very happy occasion for you tonight because you will get the opportunity to renew friendships, to talk about the times you shared together and to discover the many different pathways that each of you has travelled since you last met.
This is also a night to recall the tremendous work undertaken by Concern volunteers in the trouble spots throughout the globe. Founded at a time when the world was still coming to terms with the legacies of a World War, a Holocaust, an ongoing Cold War and the nuclear threat, Concern has more than lived up to its commitment to the relief, assistance and advancement of people in less developed areas of the world. Over the past thirty years, many of you have borne witness to the pain of civil war in Biafra, the youthful exuberance and hopefulness of Live Aid for Ethiopia and the repeated challenges of tending to the survivors and orphans of Vietnam, Rwanda and Kosova. In the face of so much conflict and division on our planet, it is all too easy to lose heart and to lose hope of ever breaking the chain of atrocities human beings can perpetrate against one another. It is a testament to your care and sheer love of your fellow human beings that you never turn away.
Despite the uncertainties, despite the dangers young Irish people continue to willingly and happily volunteer to put their own lives on hold, to risk life and limb, to reach out and extend the hand of friendship to people whose needs are so great. We are a fortunate country indeed that we have among us people like yourselves whose ideals are not tarnished by a cynical world and who remain committed and dedicated to helping others.
Gathered among you on this occasion are those who will know from experience that the world is a much more accessible place today than it was thirty years ago. Concern’s early volunteers went abroad with a primitive travel network to support them. They had no satellite telephones, no solar-powered lap-tops and little or no prospect of early evacuation in the event of hostilities.
While today’s volunteers have access to more sophisticated supports and while international travel is less daunting, the pace at which wars and disasters unfold is terrifying. The forty-day exodus of one and a half million people from the refugee camps of Goma back to Rwanda was a startling example of how quickly and dangerously events can unfold. Today, we can proudly remember that Concern volunteers were among those who responded to the challenge of this humanitarian catastrophe.
Of course working with any aid agency is never easy or comfortable. There are occasions when you yourselves are in as much danger as those in your care. Tonight we remember the sacrifices made by Concern volunteers in their work abroad. We particularly remember, with great sadness, Valerie Plaice, who died tragically in the ambush of a Concern vehicle while working in Somalia in 1993. I am sure you will join me in honouring her memory tonight.
Concern and other aid agencies have been fortunate to attract the finest and dedicated personnel and we are very grateful for your outstanding generosity and commitment to helping those in need. The vision of Concern as an international aid and development organisation clearly remains as fundamentally relevant today as at any other time when you consider that another 100 million people have joined those living in poverty in the last few years alone. We live in an age that cries out for practical visionaries, for can-do people who willingly do the hard slog which turns the language of hope and equality into a lived reality.
I would like to express my deepest gratitude to everyone of you this evening. Through your work you continue to shine a light into the dark corners of this world, so the poor, the hungry, the souls lost in the darkness of genocide and war will never be forgotten.
Tonight is your night to relax and enjoy the company of kindred spirits. I hope that the memories you share tonight will be happy memories and that you will have a very enjoyable evening.
Go raibh míle maith agaibh.