REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE BARNARDOS ANNUAL VOLUNTEER AND HELPING HANDS AWARDS CEREMONY
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE BARNARDOS ANNUAL VOLUNTEER AND HELPING HANDS AWARDS CEREMONY, GUINNESS STOREHOUSE, DUBLIN 8
Tá an-áthas orm bheith anseo i bhur measc inniu. Go raibh míle maith agaibh as ucht bhur bhfáilte chaoin agus cneasta.
Good afternoon everybody.
The Barnardos Annual Volunteer and Helping Hands Awards Ceremony is an important chance to say a deserved thank you to those whose work sustains and grows this organisation. I am glad to be here and I thank Fergus Finlay, Chief Executive of Barnardos for inviting me to what is a celebration of goodness and generosity, of community and care put at the service of Ireland’s most vulnerable children.
Barnardos is typical of many voluntary organisations in that it relies on volunteers to shoulder responsibility for a lot of its work. For the volunteers there is no reward beyond the fulfillment that comes from doing something that makes another life better, healthier, happier. There is no law that compels them to do any of the work they do beyond the law of simple human decency. But the hours they give, the fundraising they do, the commitment they create layer up a robust web of support that holds many charitable organisations together.
There is an old Irish saying, “You’ll never plough a field by turning it over in your mind”. The people we honour here today are the ‘doers’ rather than the well-intentioned dreamers - the people who get up, get out and do the work that changes things for the better. Volunteers are the first to say just how much they gain from their work with organisations like Barnardos – the personal fulfilment, the joy of being able to light up the lives of others, the pride in seeing organisations flourish and our communities deepen in sensitivity and in effective compassion.
Today’s awards give us the opportunity to acknowledge our indebtedness and our gratitude as a society for the hard work and dedication of the voluntary staff of Barnardos. I hope the recognition will encourage them to keep on volunteering and encourage others to join the strong volunteering tradition that has been such a crucial feature of Irish life. It is the clearest hallmark of active citizenship and the work that flows from it may start with Barnardos but it cascades throughout society in the lives it helps to become stronger, happier, more independent and more fully lived.
We also say in Irish that ‘Tus maith is leath na hoibre’ and nowhere is that truer than in childhood where those formative years are such an all-important building block for the rest of a child’s life. Barnardos’ agenda has always been the vulnerable child whose childhood years have, for a variety of reasons the potential to skew a life, to set it on an unhappy course not of the child’s making. Your mission is to work with children, families and communities in order to ensure that each child receives every possible chance in life. You watch out for the gaps that kids can fall through. You are their champion, their friend and their mentor.
The complexity of children’s lives, and of life itself, means you need a very sophisticated range of services and it is your volunteers who have facilitated the expansion, development and delivery of those services to the 12,000 children and their families throughout Ireland who rely on Barnardos help. Your advocacy at local and national level too has been important in mainstreaming concern for the needs of children and families in all areas of decision. You have a lot to be proud of, a lot achieved and yet there is so much more that needs to be done – the work shows no signs of abating. So there is little likelihood of Barnardos volunteers being made redundant any day soon. I hope today’s awards give you great satisfaction in knowing how much good you have done individually and collectively and I hope too it re-energizes your commitment to Barnardos and keeps you volunteering.
Warmest congratulations to the award-winners, and I would like to wish all those working with Barnardos and the other organisations represented here today every success with your future work.
Go n-éirí go geal libh. Go raibh maith agaibh.