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

Good evening everybody!

I am really pleased to be here with you tonight.

It is always gratifying to come up North, and when this includes a good cause and good company it is doubly welcome.

When I look around me I see a fine group of people here, together, in a circle of good will. We all wish to go farther and knowing that words are “gone with the wind” and that it is with words that we understand each other, and at times not, it is effectively by determined gestures of solidarity that we can make a difference.

We want to make a difference, we will make a difference.

We are all here tonight to try to take better care of the weakest link that was placed under our protection: our children.

It is a common byword today to say that children are the future. We have the obligation to deserve the future but are we really doing all we can to measure up to this vital undertaking?

We are here today because we very definitely want to help with raising funds for an institution which for the last 20 years has been a shelter for babies who need to be cared for, for reasons that life placed in the way of their young innocent lives.

It would be awfully good if the need did not exist for homes such as this and, whilst I’m here to celebrate its 20 years of age, I would prefer to wish it the opposite of congratulations: not so many years of life.

The existence of Home on the Way is still necessary, but would it not be our dream that institutionalized children should be at an end?

But we have to face this reality while it exists. We have to be heedful and generous so that with our help, such homes continue carrying out their mission as well as possible, not just with what is essential but with fondness and a very gentle and comforting lap.

Home on the Way has been included, since 1992, in Child Emergency, a more agile and effective way of working in this so very difficult area of children victims of abandonment, of involuntary or criminal negligence, of child abuse.

In July of 2006 I had the occasion to visit, with my husband, during the 2nd Campaign of the Route to Inclusion, dedicated to Children at Risk and Domestic Violence, the Home on the Way, and we greatly appreciated the much that we saw there.

Home on the Way has attended 489 children during the last 20 years. A large proportion went for adoption, and the remainder went to their biological families, the preferable solution of course, but unfortunately not always possible.

This dinner is more than a meal; it is an act of love for our children who need us so much.

The funds which we have been able to gather here tonight will allow better quality in the services rendered by Home on the Way.

From here I wish to thank all those that work in Home on the Way and in so many other institutions from North to South of the country, for the dedication, the fondness, the gestures of affection they give to these ever so small beings which they are entrusted with.

To them all, and to all of you, my very moved thank you!

Maria Cavaco Silva