This morning President Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca received students from San Andrea Secondary School, at The Palace, Valletta.
During this meeting, the students presented a copy of a report which they compiled together with the President’s Foundation for the Well-being of Society, following an invitation by San Andrea School’s well-being council, to help organise activities, during ‘Diversity Week Campaign’, which was aimed at the students’ social and cultural developments.
A number of experts from the Foundation participated in workshops and discussions, sharing their expertise on interfaith, intergenerational approach, LGBTIQ issues, refugee matters and children’s rights. Students compiled a summary of each activity included in the report, with the team of the President’s Foundation explaining the context and aims of the activities.
President Coleiro Preca said she was impressed after reading the contributions in the report, which she described as eye-openers to such issues, adding that these contributions depict the values young people aspire to see in our society.
“I want you to feel very proud. By expressing yourself about topics which affect our society on a daily basis, you are all role models”, the President said, adding that thanks to the invitation of San Andrea school, the President’s Foundation for the Well-being of Society has created a model which can, and should be, exported to other schools.
Mr George Saliba Douglas, representative of the President’s Foundation for the Well-being of Society, said that “the Foundation is honoured to have been entrusted with the coordination and delivery of these events and will be finalising a teacher’s work plan to distribute to schools so as to facilitate future similar initiatives.”
The President thanked the students for acting as the right encouragement for such a project to take off, giving it the ability to develop further and become something which can be experienced by all schools in Malta and Gozo. She also thanked the teaching staff at San Andrea School for being the pioneers of this project, for putting such important topics at the top of the PSCD agenda of their students, and for allowing the students to avail themselves of their participatory rights.
“There can never be enough opportunity for young people and children to express themselves about what affects us, as a society, on a day-to-day basis. I look forward to seeing this initiative being taken on board by other schools, for the well-being of society”, President Coleiro Preca concluded.