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Karl Schembri
A charity organisation claiming to offer residential services for disabled people and their parents, has its premises in Birkirkara totally empty of clients and is refusing to take in people despite donations it accepts from private benefactors.
The Speranza Complex for Handicapped People and their Elderly Parents in Valley Road, Birkirkara, promotes itself on its receipts it gives to benefactors as “a unique complex in Malta” which offers “the best specialised and most sophisticated services” in the field, but MaltaToday has confirmed that none of the services publicised are available for disabled people.
Since 1985, the charity received funds from the Community Chest Fund to install a lift for the disabled and also had its taxes waived on vans meant to transport its clients.
Receipts seen by MaltaToday signed by the founder and president of the charity, Alfred Delia – who is also the owner of the building – confirm that hundreds of liri have been passed over to the organisation apart from donations in kind given by businesses for the welfare of residents who are supposedly residing there.
Denounced as “a racket” by the National Commission for Persons with Disabilities (KNPD) when asked for its reactions, the organisation is instead planning to open a hostel for student tourists.
Yesterday, Delia allowed a journalist and a photographer inside his building after they turned up unexpectedly.
The three-storey complex is empty of clients yet full of beds, soft toys, obsolete computers, knick knacks and old, outlandish furniture. Of all the toilets and bathrooms, not one is suitable for people with physical disabilities and people using wheelchairs can hardly pass through the rooms.
Yet, Delia insisted he was renovating the place so that he could start receiving disabled people as residents by summer, even though the organisation has been open since 1985.
As he took us from one room into another, the impossibility of his alleged plans became clearer every minute: the dishevelled Delia is undoubtedly oblivious to the fact that nobody would ever dream of leaving a disabled person in a modern-day rendition of Miss Havisham’s home being laid to waste.
Half-finished partitions dividing bedroom halls are supposed to “provide privacy” for disabled people yet to arrive. They are painted in pastel blues and pinks, colour-coded for the sexes. It’s a confusing landscape of soft toys, religious effigies, and kitsch prints. Obsolete computers and dot matrix printers are to be found in every single room and corridor. The atmosphere is eerily infantile, a life-size dollhouse.
The house also has its own swimming pool: an empty, indoor pool supposed to be used for physiotherapy is actually surrounded by restaurant tables laid out with cutlery covered in dust. Complete with its fully stocked bar, the room is surreal and bizarre.
“Isn’t this luxury?” he said. “I want to leave nothing out for the handicapped. They deserve to live in this luxury. Now that you’ve seen everything I expect you to help me by advertising this place in your newspaper. I can make you a shareholder.”
Asked about the funds collected from private donors, Delia said he only used them to organise two yearly dinners for the disabled.
“Don’t even think I built this place with donations… I’ve forked out all my money for this place. I use donations to invite 1,400 disabled for this dinner in Easter and Christmas, totally free of charge,” he claimed. “It’s no joke. We give them entertainment, free food, everything.”
Last Monday, a journalist phoned Delia, 68, pretending to be the brother of a disabled person in need of respite services.
“Yes, yes, we cater for all kinds of people with disabilities, plus their elderly parents as well,” he said when asked about the services given there. “We have a complete complex; we have doctors, we give therapy, food, everything. Over here we make certain agreements, because our service is not just for people with disabilities; here we offer services also for their elderly parents. … We also give speech therapy, we have a physiotherapy swimming pool… We have our doctors and specialists here.”
Delia also alleged he had doctors performing surgery at the empty building. “If one of our members needs a minor operation, say hernia or appendix, we do them here,” he said. “We have the theatre and a professor whom our members can make use of.”
Confirming that he is still receiving donations, Delia said: “We get donations from benefactors we don’t even know… we thank God this happens because the Maltese are generous.”
When pressed however about the specific respite services needed by the caller, Delia said: “We can’t commit ourselves to take in someone for three days when the next moment someone might turn up who may need to stay here forever.”
Delia did however promise that once the caller and his brother became members, his whole family would benefit from the services.
“Once you become members, your mother can not only bring him (the disabled brother) here to take a break, but if she is in a situation where she can no longer look after him on her own she can rest assured that she can come to live here with her son and even with her husband if he’s alive. We do this because even though they may not be young these children want to remain with their parents. If you separate them they won’t stop crying.”
Delia told the caller there are “residential cases and auxiliary cases” – the latter being disabled members of his organisation who pass their time daily until 3pm at the Birkirkara residence.
“We go for them with our vans, they come here and learn, they learn how to cook, they watch TV, they eat here and we take them back home at 3pm. These are also our members. We have 460 of them and we have 114 beds. We have two localities, one in Birkirkara and one in Qawra. People are coming and going all the time.”
Asked if he could visit the place, Delia replied: “Listen, this is like when one goes to a cloister… the handicapped shouldn’t be exposed… we don’t do open days so that everyone comes here to see and give us donations… actually you should tell us thank you for what we’re doing. But this is like the pandemic flu… I’m not saying you’re sick or anything but even when it comes to hygiene we don’t wish to put certain things on a public show.”
About his organisation’s activities, Delia added: “Every New Year’s I organise a dinner party for some 1,400 disabled people. I pay for them and they get a complete party, all organised, and there will be ambulances, doctors, nurses and everything. We’re very organised. There are of course donors, but I fork out most of the money, and I don’t say this to blow my trumpet, but I’m ready to spend Lm4,000 because I know they like it.”
Called again on Friday by a journalist who identified himself, Delia insisted he gave services for disabled people but then admitted there were no residents inside the complex.
“We have big financial problems and maybe you can help us advertise the place,” he said. “We can’t just employ staff to give a service to a handful of disabled people, it wouldn’t be viable. But the investment is there, you should come to see for yourself; this complex lacks nothing. We have 70 beds, a swimming pool, and a restaurant and entertainment room. If we can gather a group of 20 disabled who would need our services we can start from next Monday.”
When contacted, the executive director of the National Commission for Persons with Disability, Alfred Bezzina, confirmed that the commission knew about the situation at the Speranza complex.
“The Commission on a regular basis receives complaints from businessmen, family members of persons with a disability and the public at large that they donated money to this organisation without ever receiving any feedback or tangible proof that this money is going to services for persons with a disability,” Bezzina said. “This racket has been going on now for years. The Commission always advises people not to donate money to any organisation which does not give feedback of how this money is spent. This organisation has never done this and hence the Commission strongly advises everybody not to support this organisation.”
Bezzina was categorical in his answer about Speranza’s work: “This organisation does not provide any service to persons with disability or their families or to any persons for that matter.”
About Delia’s claims that he caters “for all kinds of people with disabilities”, Bezzina said: “Not true. No services whatsoever are being provided from this centre.”
Bezzina said that KNPD was once consulted by the Transport Authority about a request by Delia to have a reserved parking in front of the Birkirkara premises.
“KNPD advises that this reserved parking should be granted whenever the place is in use by persons with a disability. No such proof ever came forward and hence this benefit was not granted.”
He added that the commission will keep recommending to government not to support Speranza through subsidies or tax cuts.
“Whenever consulted the Commission will always advice in the negative so long as the present situation remains,” he said. “Furthermore there are no indications whatsoever that the situation will improve.”
kschembri@mediatoday.com.mt
Links: www.knpd.org
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