Let me begin by congratulating BetaPsi — the Psychology Students Organisation of the University of Malta, and all the speakers and facilitators present here today.
It is your active engagement in activities like these, as students, as early career academics, researchers and practitioners, which shall set future standards for the quality of thought we can expect in this country.
The focus on multidisciplinary approaches, so central to the 360° concept, is especially reassuring. I believe that by drawing together the strengths of diverse fields and methodologies, our insight grows more nuanced and more capable of presenting the holistic realities of contemporary life.
Just as our society becomes more resilient by celebrating and including diversity, so too do our centres of higher learning become stronger and more relevant in the multidisciplinary pursuit of individual, communal, and societal wellbeing.
It is through events like this that people are encouraged to develop a critical consciousness, capable of exploring the structural and systematic oppressions faced by vulnerable persons and communities within our islands and beyond.
It is events like this that open a door onto new and unexplored connections between the lives of individuals and groups who, at first glance, may seem impossibly divided.
It is through the opportunities presented by these events that you can come together to share your expertise, to foster new partnerships, and recommit yourselves to the work of social justice and meaningful research.
The topic selected for this conference, “Family,” is particularly close to my heart. Working for the benefit of families, in all their diversity, has been an integral part of my life.
As former Minister of the Family and Social Solidarity, I was involved in efforts to bring the LEAP project to our communities. This was an important step towards effecting long-term social policy reform. Malta launched the LEAP project as a means of combating poverty and strategies of exclusion suffered by so many families, sometimes hidden from view within our society.
Its fruitful and eager implementation across the nation proves that there is still much to be done to ensure that access to social, economic, and political participation becomes a priority on our agenda.
Now, as President of the Republic and through my Foundation for the Wellbeing of Society, I have established a National Centre for Family Research. The Centre works with the Foundation’s consultative fora, to act on the experiences and concerns of the people of this country and discover ways of guaranteeing that their wellbeing takes its rightful place in our discourse on the family.
It is time for us to speak not of one monolithic conception of “family,” but about the diversity of “families” in our society. We must recognise that the nature of the nuclear family is itself changing.
Is it evolving into something different and new?
Does it owe so much of its power to the particularities of historical, religious, and social norms, or is there some deeper significance?
How has the democratisation of families, and the redistribution of gender roles, changed our perceptions?
Family configurations vary across cultures, and it is important for us to find ways of honouring these differences, without imposing one ideal over all others.
We must beware that we do not limit ourselves by maintaining the dominance of a single family structure, while failing to recognise significant differences among so many families. We must remember that each of our families has equal validity, and equal dignity.
Ultimately, we must recognise that families are not only essential units through which many of us build some of our most formative relationships.
They are also embedded within the structures of society itself, and are therefore created by and involved in the creation of the kinds of social transformation we seek to achieve. Shifting social discourses away from rhetoric of exclusion and violence towards processes of peace must begin within the family.
How are we to achieve these goals, to make our families safer and stronger?
How are we to foster wellbeing within our families, through the practice of self-reflection and non-coercion?
How are we to at last accept that all families have equal value, whether extended or immediate, with same or different gender parents, in the context of care by birth parents or other guardians?
In all our conversations about families, we cannot help but speak, almost in one breath, about the role of women.
Family structures have changed, as have the roles of women in our society.
At a national consultation held by my Foundation for the Wellbeing of Society, on the occasion of Women’s Day last year, many women voiced their anxiety about achieving a sustainable work-life balance. Our discussions at this year’s celebration echoed these concerns once again.
Women described the weight of social pressure, and the limited capacity in many working environments to fully integrate a woman’s experiences of family life with her professional life.
It is unfortunate to realise that many workplaces are still oriented towards a male-dominated model of career development, rooted in a strictly enforced binary notion of gender, and gender roles.
Such concepts are at the root of dangerous ideologies that would seek to oppress women, to limit women’s access to full socio-economic and political participation, and impose a single model for family life that pushes so many people to the margins of society.
It is this limited understanding of gender, as irreconcilable opposites rather than a natural continuum, which is one of the objectives that the HeForShe Malta Campaign seeks to address.
When I was invited by the United Nations to become a champion for the HeForShe Solidarity Movement, selected as the only woman out of ten heads of state, I recognised the importance of mobilising men and boys in the pursuit of gender equality.
It is only by securing the active participation of all people that we can hope to promote a meaningful change. We must stand together, aware of the benefits we shall achieve, not only individually but in our families, in our communities, and in our country.
Let me conclude by paraphrasing Paulo Freire, whom many of you will recognise as the founding voice of critical education. It is not enough for us to simply think about the people, we must learn how to think with the people.
I hope you shall strive, throughout this conference and beyond, to think with the people, especially those individuals and families whose experiences of life are the most precarious.
May you dedicate yourselves, throughout your academic and professional careers, to the empowerment of the vulnerable, and keep mindful of the central importance of wellbeing in all our lives.
Thank you.