Our children, our treasure, our future-President to launch theme events |22 December 2004

It was President James A. Michel who, soon after taking over the Presidency earlier this year, dedicated 2005 to "Our Children, our treasure, our future."

"Our children, our treasure, our future" will take over as the national theme for 2005, at the onset of the New Year, soon after midnight on December 31.

President Michel will launch the events to go with the theme at a special ceremony that will be held at the International Conference Centre in the afternoon of Saturday January 8, 2005.

The events have been planned by a high level multi-sectoral committee that has held regular meetings chaired by the President himself since July 15, 2004.

The committee met for the last time prior to the events at State House on Tuesday last week when the members, who included ministers with portfolios related to child welfare and their principal secretaries met with representatives of non-governmental organisations and of the national media.

They finalised the calendar of events and reviewed the various tools to be used during the launching and throughout 2005, stressing that players will comprise everybody, and not only those in government organisations.

"The members expressed the desire and optimism that working together for our children will unite us further as a people and a nation," the principal secretary for social affairs, Ms Marie-Antoinette Alexis said in an interview with Seychelles Nation on Friday.

She has been the coordinator of the working committee organising the events running up to the launching of the Year.

She said that activities to mark the Year will be those that have already been in place in various sectors, an enhancement of the same and addition of some new ones that will run throughout the year.

She said key link persons will be identified in government, non-governmental and private sector organisations to spearhead organised events or initiate new ones.

During his landmark address to the Nation on June 18, President Michel launched the theme, saying that “the more we progress and the more we make our mark in the world, the more we need to educate our children and put them on the right track at a very early age.”

He said that the first years of a child are the most important in its life and pledged that government will devote more attention to the care and education of children from birth onwards.

“Parents as well as the community should do likewise,” he said, adding that government will allocate more resources to early learning programmes for children in nurseries as well as in day-care centres.

“The care and education of our children from birth is the key to the next phase of our development,” he said, noting that it is for that reason he was dedicating the Year 2005 to the children of Seychelles under the theme “Our children: our treasure, our future.”

He said that in so doing, on the occasion of his first National Day as President of Seychelles, he was calling on his Government as well as all institutions and agencies concerned to start reflecting on what more can be done to make the year 2005 one that will make the difference for Seychellois children.

“Our children are the future of Seychelles. And it is to them that I dedicate my service to the people of Seychelles and to the unity of our country,” he said.