Guaranteeing the future of Malta’s cultural heart | Omar Farrugia

Omar Farrugia is public works parliamentary secretary

For people like myself, who was born in Mqabba, June and August are not just any two months. They are the months when the town turns blue or red.

A few weeks before the town’s feast, you will see huge poles with a red or blue bulb—the early indications that festa preparations are underway.

In Mqabba, you learn early that a feast is not a date on a calendar but a rhythm that shapes the year: The winter fundraising, the spring rehearsals, the summer crescendo.

It doesn’t matter what you do in life. You can be a secondary school student, an accountant or a business owner. You wear the colours and you give a hand. You help out. No job is too small, or too big.

You learn that a village is glued together by volunteers who believe that their square should sing twice a year.

Of course, there is the religious aspect, but most of it is cultural. The festa is ingrained in the fabric of who we are.

Two societies anchor our village life: Soċjetà Santa Marija and Banda Re Ġorġ V, guardians of the titular Santa Marija feast in August, and Soċjetà Mużikali Madonna tal-Ġilju, whose lily-emblazoned banners colour June.

Between them, you’ll find classrooms where children get free music tuition, committee rooms where every kind of argument is born and settled, and stores filled with lovingly mended standards and lanterns.

On the third Sunday of June and again on 15 August, the square becomes an open-air theatre of music, light and devotion. These are the days when Mqabba’s identity is also audible.

Our fireworks, too, have a reputation that extends far beyond the village boundary, not because they are loud, but because they are art.

From elaborate ground pieces to the feats that put Mqabba on international stages, these shows represent thousands of hours of craft, rehearsal and sacrifices. Artistry is married to discipline; volunteers know that one mistake can cost dearly.

It is the Maltese miracle of festa culture—community-run, safety conscious, and relentlessly ambitious.

This is the reason why I was proud to vote down legislation that endangered not just local feasts, but sport activities and many other practices, last week.

Anything and everything fell within the parameters of what the Nationalist Party wanted to introduce in the Constitution [making a healthy and sustainable environment a human right].

Every lawyer that I spoke to described the proposed law as extremely wide and very problematic, opening a pandora’s box that is easy to open but very difficult to close.

I’m not sure whether it was a case of bad preparation or pandering to extremes, but that is no way how to strong arm the environmental cause.

The government I form part of is committed to strengthening these institutions and support volunteers that are the foundation of our culture and our young people.

I had the privilege of visiting Lija Athletics FC and Għaqda tal-Mużika San Gejtanu AD 1906. Two voluntary organisations who both benefitted from works carried out by the Public Works Department.

During my visits to Lija and Ħamrun, I was able to see and experience what voluntarism is all about. Volunteers were dedicating their free time with absolute and genuine passion for the benefit of those benefitting from their service.

Since 2024, the Public Works Department has played a central role in supporting the voluntary sector through an extensive programme of works.

Over this period, the department successfully completed around 80 projects in over 20 sports organisations, ranging from the regeneration of sports facilities to structural works that directly enhance the experience of athletes and supporters.

At the same time, it has carried out 60 projects within 30 ecclesiastical and feast-related voluntary organisations, providing tangible support to parishes, band clubs, and festa committees.

Voluntary organisations, irrespective of the sector they operate in can focus primarily and directly on how best they can strengthen their invaluable work and contribute to those who rely on their stellar work.

As a government, we renew our guarantee to them—your work matters, your voice counts, and you remain the foundation of Maltese culture.