SPEECH BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE OFFICIAL OPENING OF COBH YOUTH SERVICE AND DROP-IN CENTRE
SPEECH BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE OFFICIAL OPENING OF COBH YOUTH SERVICE AND DROP-IN CENTRE THURSDAY, 5 JULY, 2001
Is mór an pléisiúir dom bheith anseo i bhur measc inniu. Go raibh míle maith agaibh as ucht bhur bhfáilte chaoin.
I am delighted to be here in Cobh to officially open the Cobh Youth Service and Drop-in Centre and I thank you for your kind invitation and your very warm welcome. Special thanks to my old friend Sr. Emmanuel and woman of many parts but now President of Cobh Youth Service Committee for the excellent leadership and support she has provided to the Centre. It is wonderful to observe the great efforts being made here in County Cork towards a better future for our young people.
There is an Irish saying ‘Mol an óige agus tiocfaidh sí’ – praise the youth and they will blossom. Packed into that old and terse commandment is a deep understanding of human psychology, indeed of human nature. We flourish when we are loved, valued and encouraged and the philosophy of Cobh Youth Service is to create a climate where the young are helped to grow strong in confidence and character. These young people are after all one of our country’s greatest resources. They will inherit the future and as their generation takes over the job of community building they in their turn will become builders of Ireland’s future. We owe it to them to help them to build faith and trust in their own abilities and talents, to take them that journey into the self out of which emerges the adult who is ready and willing to participate fully in civic life, in community.
Failure to properly support, encourage and develop human potential is like throwing away a fortune. There is nothing more tragic than a young life wasted, a young man or woman who has never known the joy of their own gifts, whose talents have remained locked up, untapped. We can’t afford to waste those gifts and that is why your work is so important because it is committed to reaching and empowering all that talent.
Ireland is living through remarkable times. Widened educational access has released a huge reservoir of human power into the national knowledge. People who were once held back by marginalisation, poverty, gender disability or other social disadvantage are finding new avenues of opportunity open to them and they are forming new fresh ambitions for themselves and their children. No-one has an ambition to see their children’s gifts thrown away on the misery of alcohol or drug abuse yet many communities face that threat today and many have watched young lives utterly wastefully squandered, only half-lived. It is a real challenge to all of us to face these threats to our personal happiness and our collective peace of mind. Here in Cobh you take nothing for granted, leave nothing to chance, you go out to meet the challenge and bring hope in its most practical accessible form providing a safe and caring environment for those most at risk. Graham Greene once wrote:
‘there is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in’.
This moment has that feel about it. Together with the many volunteers who have given so generously of their time and commitment, you have provided that moment, you have opened the door to the future of the young people of Cobh.
There is no doubt that the continued success of the Centre would not have been possible without volunteers – people willing to invest in their community, to return to the community what they themselves have received and learned. We all know the radical transformation that comes when a community looks out to the world with its shoulders back, its head up, when success begins to breed success. It looks at itself differently and others look at it differently. A whole new set of relationships is established, new energies and synergies are released. That is what this Centre is all about, meeting the future without fear, welcoming it with enthusiasm.
I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate each and every one of you on your success with this project – the volunteers, members of the Committee, the Youth Centre Co-ordinators and all the staff of the Centre. I also want to pay tribute to the organizations who have given financial support to this initiative over the past nine years – the Southern Health Board, Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs, the local Urban Council and the local Chamber of Commerce as well as the contributions of many local enterprises. I hope that you will continue to lend your time and support for many years to come to this very worthwhile service.
Finally, I would like to commend all the young people who have participated in the various activities here. I hope that you have had great fun, made many new friends and discovered for yourselves the joy of taking part.
I now declare this Centre officially open and I wish you all every success in the future.
Go n-éirí go geal libh. Go raibh maith agaibh.