President McAleese said progress could be made towards stability at talks hosted by the British and Irish premiers at Stormont.
Speaking at a cross-community project in Finaghy before Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and prime minister Tony Blair arrived in Belfast, Mrs McAleese said local communities could show political leaders how mutual respect could foster progress between two opposing traditions.
The President had been invited to visit Finaghy Crossroads - a group working to counter sectarianism and build an inclusive community in the mixed south Belfast suburb - which was publishing its latest working proposals.
She said the group's work was "little short of extraordinary". "It's one of the most uplifting and reassuring things I've seen happen in many years. These are people who had become estranged from each other. They have decided that unless they talk to other community groups, unless they got to know the other who was regarded as 'the enemy', they were never going to make the place safer for anybody. They couldn't make the place safe for their own people unless they made it safe for everyone."
Drawing parallels between community efforts at street level and the work of the parties and two governments at Stormont, Mrs McAleese said the Finaghy community was on a path to a much better future because they were learning to engage with one another. "All this island is on that journey - people are on different steps along the way," she told The Irish Times.
"Not everyone is lined up at the same point. The politicians will find their day for doing exactly what exactly has been done here. There are difficulties but they are of a magnitude which is tiny compared to five or 10 years ago. Some people would regard them as infinitesimally small. I would be one of those people who regards them as really very small by comparison with the hurdles that we have overcome.
"I'd like to think that we are getting close to a time where the politicians would be doing what we have seen done here so successfully at Finaghy Crossroads."
Mrs McAleese said she had no reservations about visibly supporting work in which loyalists and republicans were involved.
"I don't regard it as dangerous territory. I regard it as absolutely essential to talk to people who have a very big job to do in terms of building the future."
The future lay, she said, in both communities jointly working to build "one shared space, one shared community".