Media Library

Speeches

REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MARY McALEESE AT THE OPENING OF THE 4TH ANNUAL ISPCC NATIONAL CHILDREN’S FORUM

REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MARY McALEESE AT THE OPENING OF THE 4TH ANNUAL ISPCC NATIONAL CHILDREN’S FORUM ON WEDNESDAY 8 JULY, 1998

Firstly, I’d like to thank you all very much indeed for a most unusual welcome – for its warmth and enthusiasm – and for its sheer colour. I would like to thank the ISPCC – and particularly Cian O’Tighearnaigh – for giving me this opportunity to be here this morning – to meet and talk with you – and to open your fourth National Children’s Forum. I know that there are children and young people from all over Ireland here – and I would like to welcome each and every one of you to the Forum. Some of you will have travelled quite far to be here – and I want to commend those of you who have made the special effort – either on your own or with the help of parents, family or friends – so that you could play your part in the Forum.

I see that you have a very full agenda for the day – with workshops and sessions all centred on the themes of this year’s event. At this time, in Ireland especially – when so much has been done to put relationships and structures on a new footing – when there is hope that we can embark on a new direction in peace and mutual respect – your themes of children and young people working together to make peace work – to end racism – to explore and appreciate the rights of children’s and adults’ rights and responsibilities - have an added importance and significance. It is you, the young people of this island, who hold the key to its future. You have the ability, the freshness and the openness to accept new ideas and new relationships - without having to retreat into the confines of history and traditions – which can often become like blinkers to those who cannot and will not see outside their limited field of vision.

As you know, I have my own theme for my Presidency – building bridges between people from all walks of life – between children and children – and between adults and children – and between adults and adults so that each of us can more easily understand and accept that there are others in our society – that they too have rights and responsibilities – and that their views and beliefs need to be understood before they can be appreciated. This year’s Forum – with children and young people from every background – with different abilities and disabilities – and from many communities throughout the island of Ireland – is very much in keeping with that theme of building bridges.

Most importantly, you are participating in the affairs of your society as they impact on the lives of children and young people – and with facilities like the ISPCC’s Children’s Advisory Committees or the STEPS Youth Advice and Counselling Service – you have the mechanisms through which you can play a full and responsible part in our society – and by which the voices of children and young people can make an impact. I know that on the international level – six of you were in Geneva last January for the UN review of the Irish Government’s progress in implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. And 250 of you have recently completed a structured training course on your rights and responsibilities under the UN Convention. To every one of you I want to offer my warm congratulations on these magnificent achievements - and on your good fortune in being able to participate in these interesting and rewarding activities.

What is learned in childhood is engraved in stone’. Through your participation in the course and the review at Geneva – and indeed at conferences like this – you are being careful to ensure that what is engraved on your lives is good and wholesome. It is the kind of thing that builds up a healthy community and a healthy country by giving firm leadership and direction to those who are most impressionable.

There is an urgent need for leadership among children. Leadership does not just belong to adults. There are many opportunity in your lives – at play – in the community - at school – to show the kind of leadership that challenges racist behaviour – that challenges bullying – that challenges taunting of the child who is different. Everybody here will have heard others say unkind and uncharitable things – nasty things – and things that have made other children feel very small – and very frightened. We are relying on you to be the voices that speak up and defend – not the voices that remain silent. Silence breeds sectarianism – silence breeds racism. Once the bully is allowed to speak – and nobody challenges it expands the space in which he or she can operate.

I think at a conference such as this - which in a way is a celebration of the status of children and young people in our own society – that we should pause to think of those – whether in our own communities or in countries the world over - who do not have the good fortune of having their rights respected or even recognised. There are many – indeed far too many – who are living in poverty and deprivation – who are being exploited as child workers – who are being used and abused by unscrupulous people – and who do not have the opportunities that most of us take for granted. These children and young people should be uppermost in our minds as we gather today to express our views and opinions on the themes of this year’s Forum.

One of the main benefits of coming here is that you get the opportunity to meet others – to build new friendships and links – and to make contacts that will endure for life. You will realise that there are others – even some who live close to home – who have a very different story to tell – but with whom you still have much in common on which you can build new relationships and friendships. By meeting others – by talking to them and with them – you can understand their viewpoints – their fears and apprehensions – and can broaden your own perspectives and horizons in the process.

I want to pay a particular tribute to your parents and guardians – and to the ISPCC – for facilitating your attendance at this conference. In doing so, they have recognised your rights to play a full part in society – and have demonstrated that they value the contribution that you can make to this and future generations. As Kahlil Gibran, the Lebanese writer and Painter - said on children in 1923 - “Your children are not your children. . . And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. . . You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you, For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday, You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth”.

I know that there are many young arrows waiting to be sent forth today. In opening the 4th annual ISPCC National Children’s Forum I hope that you have a fruitful and enjoyable day at the Forum. Your lives will be all the more enriched for being here.