Hand in hand...

On Thursday afternoon a friend and I went along to the source of a piece I had written about some weeks ago. Josie Muscat had asked us a while back to visit the premises of the Eden Foundation at Bulebel. I had been there only once, together with the Leader of the Opposition when I still sat as an MP quite before the 1996 general election.

When inviting my friend Ninu and myself, Josie suggested I would find that a lot had changed. Back on site, as we trailed Dr Muscat and Br Austin, listening and talking to Eden personnel and to persons under their care, I felt that - no, not really - not a lot had changed.

The same thing that had so moved Alfred Sant and me six years ago had simply grown and grown. The core ingredient remained the same. The foundation has to operate with personnel who receive remuneration for their work. But most evidently what motivates them is not the cash nexus. It is love. It is commitment. It is dedication. They are the basis of the foundation, flowing profusely from the staff and volunteers, and from parents of disabled children who turn in that direction for a measure of hope.

The Eden Foundation premises have grown. The programmes have increased. This is not some defined project, but a process that goes on and on, deriving inspiration and dynamism from within itself. Despite the unquantifiable value of work by volunteers, continued growth brings along a growing financing requirement. The foundation`s efforts to raise funds through donations know no pause. Josie Muscat, gently, without intruding upon or pressurising, is relentless in his passionate drive to urge funds to flow to the foundation. Br Austin told us, only half in jest, that Dr Muscat had taught him to beg like him.

Ah, but for what cause! Before we left a staff member gave me a handmade card. To remember your visit, she said. It included a poem by "the staff and children at the Conductive Education Programme" of the Foundation. Within it there was this plea on behalf of inmates:

Help us build a better world
Let us make their life big fun
So we can be together
Hand in hand under one sun...

The foundation promotes such togetherness through programmes that I am not qualified to detail. Drawing on its newsletter - Link-Ed Quarterly - which by a remarkable coincidence I found in my mail when I returned from our visit on Thursday, I can offer a brief description of the objective of the department of the Creative Arts and Physiotherapy. The use of the creative arts in working with people with disabilities has a long tradition in many countries.

The creative art, explains the Newsletter, help bring about durable, positive change in the direction of physical, emotional and social well-being. They help a person achieve more fully his/her potential.

The foundation helps from a very early age children with cerebral palsy, autism, and other differences offered by mysterious nature as she paints humanity in the multi-colours of her rainbow. The staff introduce the young and not-so-young individuals that are sent to them to an extensive range of assistance, including an introduction to the acquisition of computer skills where this is possible.

At times facilitators operate on a one-to-one basis.

Wherever this can be achieved the Foundation aims to help young children under its care to prepare for integration into all-inclusive education. Integration, in fact, is part of the name of the ongoing process in Malta`s own Eden. This is evident in the efforts that the foundation makes to prepare individuals with a disability for relevant gainful employment.

The careful stages of preparation, as I understood them, although I can only reflect them incompletely, range from painstaking work at the Bulebel premises, to experience in a real working environment. In the latter case assisted individuals (I hope that no one will be offended that I refuse to use the modern term `clients`) are not employed - they are exposed to work and encouraged to participate in it.

Such exposure, given in factories, offices, hotels - wherever employers are prepared to make it available, is part of the Pre-Employment programme. Through it (to quote again from the newsletter) the foundation provides a learning environment where people with special needs are trained to manage the tasks of daily living. The aims of this (adult) programme are to facilitate the transition from the learning environment to the workplace, and to identify the trainee`s strength, abilities and preferences.

Josie Muscat is understandably proud as well as grateful that, over the years the foundation has managed to place a considerable number of its trainees in remunerative employment. The current total, I believe, is 68. The foundation has also set up a co-operative for individuals who can do a certain level of work, but who cannot, at least as yet, be placed in outside employment.

With help from volunteers this small co-op performs activities like mailing, outwork, packing, upkeep of green areas, also some production. Income generation goes to supplement the social security benefits of the co-op members.

Try as one might it is not always possible to enable people with a physical, mental, or sensorial difference to develop certain work skills. Recognising this reality the Eden Foundation introduced earlier this year a Community and Inclusion Programme.

Its aim is "to prepare young adults with disability, for whom employment is not a realistic option, for future residential living in small `family units` in the community."

The programme attempts to familiarise those who participate in it with "a new environment, which supports their independence to the maximum possible and which involves them in the normal routine of daily living". That includes every day tasks like shopping, cooking, washing, and enjoying one`s free time.

The first participants in the programme attend twice a week. That is targeted to rise to five times weekly.

The growing love, care, and commitment of the Eden Foundation have necessitated new, custom-built premises. The government has made space available. The shell of the new building is ready. It is all paid for, Josie Muscat told us. Now there is the little matter of finishing and equipping it.

Again, contributions are required. Those who can dip fairly deeply into their pockets and are interested in doing so can contribute to finish one room. The outlay starts from Lm1,500. Contributing individuals, families and businesses can name "their" room, perhaps in memory of a loved one, a founder, an ideal.

Rather wistfully, never imagining that I would quote him, as I do here without his permission, before we left Josie told me: "Sometimes, Lin, I wonder whether I shall see this new building finished in my lifetime." Without hesitation I said it would probably be ready within two or three years.

A hasty reaction? A foolish exaggeration? Probably not. Five donors have already come forward. They include the Police Association and the Marsa Shipbuilding yard. With help from the media, many more are likely to do so too. Three hundred workers putting Lm5 each into a pool can sponsor a small room. Business can go a bit further.

The best trait of our people is the way we look the need of others in the eye, and act. We do not articulate it much, but we do know that when we help the Eden Foundation and similar indicatives, we really contribute to fulfil ourselves.... so that we can be together hand in hand under one sun...