A Message From Michael Palin
"Anyone who knows what it is to stammer either personally or, as in my case, through
a loved one's experience, will know the effect it can have on a life. To know
what you want to say and be unable to say it is almost intolerably frustrating.
All the patience in the world cannot prevent it affecting the self-confidence
and self-esteem.
Much of the problem stems from public ignorance of stammering
and stammerers and I hope that the raised profile of the Centre
will help to change this. But the most important work is to try
to alleviate stammering itself and to teach people how best it can
be controlled. And what better way to start than with children who
stammer?
That is what the Michael Palin Centre is all about. I'm enormously proud
of the painstaking, unsensational way in which our therapists, the children
and their families go about confronting and dealing with the problem together,
as a team. This shared approach has, I'm sure, been the reason why our first
eight years have been so successful. But the price of success is popularity and
we know full well that we just don't have the resources to help all the children
who need us.
What we can do, with your support, is to increase those resources, whilst
continuing to show the world that something can be done for children
who stammer. To show that there is hope, that there is another way,
that the lifetime of frustration and anxiety which someone like
my own father suffered, can, if we all work together, be a thing
of the past."
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