Watch One Family 40th Video

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If you couldn’t join us for One Family 40th  celebrations, perhaps you’d like to watch the video….

Part 1 features Mary Henry, President, One Family, John O’Connell, Chair, One Family and Catriona Crowe, Head of Special Projects at The National Archives of Ireland.

Part 2 features Karen Kiernan, Director, One Family reading a moving message from founder Maura Richards O’Dea and Minister Frances Fitzgerald T.D, Minister for Children and Youth Affairs.

Part 3 features Fintan O’Toole, Assistant Editor at The Irish Times and actors Rachael Dowling, Helene Montague and Pauline Shanahan reading the true stories of some of our clients – making it clear that One Family makes a real difference to the lives of one-parent families.

Part 4 features Geoffrey Shannon, Rapporteur on Child Protection and Karen Kiernan, Director, One Family.

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