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

Today’s launch arose from a very beautiful story.

One day, a mother was faced with an unusual problem.

Her very unusual son understood that his school could not cater for him any further. He had reached the age limit.

She was worried, of course.

And it was her son who found the answer:

“Mummy, if we do not have a school, why don’t you set one up!”

From here, from this unusual innocence, from a very unusual teenager, the idea was born of the urgent need to build a hostel – The House of Marks.

Because this mother does not give up and we are all going to be as stubborn as she is.

And now we are going to help building a house. A wall, a roof, a piece of garden, a bed. Little by little, piece by piece, we have to help to make this dream come true. Because it is needed, but also because we want to be better and be more aware of those who need our help.

I am pleased to know, and now through experience, that this is happening more often and with greater endeavor.

I want to refer, here and now, with a great big thank you, that the Gulbenkian Foundation and the Swatch enterprise have joined this project.

More will come, I am certain, because we need many joint efforts to put up the walls of a house.

We will have to fight, to have patience, capacity to face difficulties, without becoming discouraged.

We will mainly need a lot of generosity, a lot of team work, because nothing gets done without help.

I have met with a lot of enthusiasm in my country; I have felt that so many want to help, that I know we will be able to put a roof on this project.

Only after that will we be able to celebrate the victory of equitability.

This is an issue for which we must urgently wake up. Our very unusual sons and daughters are with us longer now, thanks to the magnificent scientific progress of the last few years. This gives us increased responsibility in the aid and help that we want to and should give them.

To achieve this task, we urgently need the “house of marks”, where they can be given what they need and to feel loved as they deserve.

A very unusual life is not necessarily a burden, a useless bulk.

When usefully aided to develop their capabilities, all human beings have a place in the active sector of society.

This is what we want, but it is also our duty, as members of a community.

Times have changed and throughout this mutation we have learnt a lot about persons who, during centuries, were either hidden or inadequately treated.

We are more knowledgeable now, we have more means, and we have more duties.

Because we understand better, under a different light, the rights of the rare and very unusual citizens, our responsibility is much greater.

With no apologies, but also without needless recriminations, let us all assume that responsibility and side with the “courageous mothers” who are teaching us the way to go.

They have already achieved so much that the path is now much easier to follow.

It is only one step ahead of the other. In this case, as we will be building a house, it is only putting one tile after another, one brick after another.

Every day I am faced with soulful cries from mothers (I must tell you that it is almost always the mothers) that write me desperately because of the lack of schooling, the lack of all types of support, for their rare children.

Daughters and sons grow up, mothers work to provide them with what they need, and then do not know how to attend to all that is demanded of them.

Some of them also confess that they are now alone, because the fathers could not cope. They always cope. They always fight.

I apologize, but this outburst is the result of my contacts with a reality which I now know well.

I must confess that what impressed me most in the beautiful story which we are living here today was the fact that Paula Costa, who has already set up the Association of the Very Unusual and is going to build the “House of Marks” because we are here to help her, or better, to help ourselves because the problem belongs to us all, has given her heart and soul to this project since her son Mark found out there was no further school for him.

We have to rush; otherwise we run the risk of arriving too late. We cannot abandon the Marks who need us and only find the remedy when the Marks have left us.

Time is not money here, anymore, time is Love.

Paula runs for love. Let us also run with her.

Souls with this temperament cannot be left alone to build windmills.

We have to start work to provide them with bricks, tiles and concrete and whatever else is needed, so that we do not become ashamed of our inertness when facing such energy, such strength to believe that what is impossible only requires much faith and much work to become real.

I know that Paula is not alone anymore. That some have already answered positively to this wave of hope that she knows so well to breed in those that follow her path.

Personally I must say that it was not Paula who came to me for help. I called her in.

I read an interview about the “Association of the Very Unusual”, which she founded, about her path with the rare son that God gave her, about her fight not to allow herself to be destroyed by difficulties, and immediately wanted to call her and tell her, from woman to woman:

“- Look, Paula! I am now in a position in which maybe people will listen to me.

And what I want to achieve here is precisely to give voice to whoever lacks it, I want to be the conveyor belt of the more forgotten, the more hidden, and the more abandoned.

Of those that no one sees, that no one knows exists.

I believe that your dream matches perfectly with this my primary objective”.

And here we are today, somewhere along the way.

I am certain that our dream, as that of the many more people we wish to gain to this cause, will come to fruition.

I am already looking forward to our joy on the opening day.

And the endeavor we will place on the following tasks.

Because this is an endless chain, link after link.

Whilst there is anyone that needs us!