€600,000 President’s Trust investment for vulnerable youngsters, including new skate park

The President’s Trust has invested over €600,000 on projects aimed at helping vulnerable young people facing social exclusion or at risk of poverty, with the construction of a new skate park in Birzebbuga being just one of the achievement of this well-spent money.

Trust director Sarah Borda Bondin said – on the third anniversary of the Trust’s creation – that nine projects were ongoing, and that each initiative was funded with the support of the private sector and well-researched and costed to ensure its sustainability and that it makes a real difference.

The ‘Spark’ skate park – the fruit of a partnership with the Birzebbuga local council and Agenzija Zghazagh – will allow youngster to practice their sport without putting their lives in danger by doing so on public roads. It aims to encourage such children to be more active in their community.

Another of the Trust’s projects saw the providing of counseling to 220 children attending St Paul’s Bay Primary School, which has an inordinate number of social issues which it is successfully addressing, the Trust highlighted.

Through a partnership with the Blossom Foundation, the school’s administration, teachers and LSAs, two counselors were recruited to provide the school’s students with psycho-social support.

The demand for this was so overwhelming, that a third counsellor had to be recruited, and there is now a planned extension of the project to Naxxar Middle School.

Funds from the project also went towards providing semi-independent, supported accommodation for young pregnant women and mothers aged 18 to 24, helping them regain charge of their lives.

The project, ‘Y-Assist’, involves technical expertise from the UK Life Charity, and was done hand in hand with the St Jean Antide Foundation.

Other projects include: an employment initiative to help disadvantaged young people, with 51 participants in a year; ‘Adopt A Family’, which helps those at risk of poverty improve their standard of living; a scholarship programme for students from a disadvantaged socio-economic background; ‘Programm Tbissima’, a children’s community centre in Marsa; and a national readathon that aims to also provide tools to help visually-impaired children.