President Michael D. Higgins congratulates One Family

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We are so appreciative and thankful for all the good wishes which we’ve been getting for our 40th – many thanks. We thought we’d share the message of support sent to us by President Michael D. Higgins which was read out on the night of our celebrations:

I would like to send my best wishes to Cherish as you celebrate your 40th anniversary. For many years single mothers in our society were an excluded group, a people without a voice. I thank you for all you have done in promoting an inclusive citizenship by ensuring that lone parents and their children are treated with respect and are valued as a family within our society. Your contribution to changing the landscape for lone parents in this county has been a significant one. I congratulate you for your dedication and commitment and I wish you every success in the future.
Michael D. Higgins
Uachtarán na hÉireann
President of Ireland
You can also read the message from our founder Maura Richards O’Dea here
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To celebrate our 40th, we’ve been collected experiences from some of our clients over the years. These stories form a precious and informative archive – thanks so much to Christine, Kiva and Melissa for adding to those stories.

More clients share their One Family stories, read them here…

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 Thanks to more clients – Louise, Tracey and Maria – for sharing their experiences of One Family and of parenting alone or sharing parenting – we will be posting more of these stories over the coming weeks, all to mark our 40th anniversary.

 

Listen to memories from One Family Founders

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Listen to the memories of One Family Founders

Some of the One Family/ Cherish founder members have been kind enough to take the time to share their memories from the early days with us – listen to Evelyn Forde, Annette Hunter-Evans, Margaret Murphy and Nuala Feric.  We will shortly be sharing the full interviews with these courageous women who founded Cherish back in 1972. Listen here – SoundBites

Read about more Family Stories

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Thanks to Cathryn and Cecelia for sharing their stories of parenting alone and their experience of One Family. See more client stories here 

One Family founder Maura O’Dea on Today FM

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Here is One Family founder Maura O’Dea and Director Karen Kiernan on Today FM’s The Last Word last Thursday – its in part 3 and starts at 10 mins 40 seconds in

Listen here

 

Request for 2014 to be European Year for Reconciling Work and Family Life

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A declariation requesting that 2014 be the European Year for Reconciling Work and Family Life has been presented in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, initiated by Marian Harken ALDE Ireland, amongst others. COFACE, together with the European Alliance for the EY2014, is trying to bring attention to the fact that creating and promoting policies that enable the reconciliation of work and family life would be a win-win situation – both for individual EU citizens, as well as for the European Union as a whole, enabling women and men in all kinds of family models to exercise greater choice in balancing work and family life on the basis of their individual needs and preferences.