Welcome to the Official page of the Presidency of the Portuguese Republic

On the 3rd of June 2008, when I officially opened in Lisbon, near D. Estefânia Hospital, the first Ronald McDonald Home in Portugal, I said: “I want to believe that this home built with love is only the first of a continuing project”.

On that day I decided that, if our home is our castle, for a child a home where it feels well is its fairy castle.

Today we are leading the way to build another fairy castle!

The fact that we are all here today laying the corner stone for the second Ronald McDonald Home, now in Porto, near S. João Hospital, shows that believing strongly is half way to make our dreams come true.

But it is not enough.

A short while ago, when the writer and journalist Patricia Reis interviewed me for the Portefólio Magazine, regarding an assertion by Teixeira de Pascoaes that we do not exist more than in our dreams I stated, with conviction, that we have to work a lot to make them come true and as such to comply with what life demands from us.

Our people have always known that we cannot go anywhere without making an effort: «have faith in the Virgin and don’t run and you’ll take a heavy fall».

My grandparents used this proverb very often to get us all, children and grandchildren, to work to earn our daily bread. They had the accumulated experience of hard times when what was superfluous was of no importance.

This dream, born nearly 40 years ago in the heart of distressed parents, is beautiful because it is still alive, because it has spread throughout the world, because it is backed by thousands of volunteers.

Today we are in the city of Porto, from which “Portugal bears its name”. Where at times we feel that the heart of Portugal beats with a strength that is greater than ever.

This is why I once again have all the motives to believe that we won a bet, another stone on a path with an as yet unknown destination.

We only feel that all of us, and we are already many, want to be live stones in the building of another “home from home”.

For some years now I have been dedicated to meet, on the spot, all those that have asked me to be with them in their moments of pain, but also to celebrate with them the moments of their victories in the fight against that pain.

And I have learnt so much! I am deeply grateful to all those who have given me the opportunity to share in their lives, their defeats and their victories.

Solidarity, the hands we stretch towards those that need us, is always stronger when in the origin of our wish to help lies a case that has really shown us, in those whom we love, how much life is vulnerable, how much life is precious.

The Ronald McDonald Homes also started from a beautiful love story.

It is this love story that we are continuing here today. And we will continue, while “there are children and families that need a home from home” in difficult moments of their lives.

Count on us, while our children, our most precious asset, need a lap, a caress, a shelter, during the painful moments of their short lives.

Thank you for your presence, thank you for what you have already carried out. Thank you for the much that you are still going to achieve.