Accounting for The Times Mnajdra Fund

Following the wanton destruction of the World Heritage Site temple at Mnajdra on Good Friday, April 13, 2001, there was widespread revulsion and condemnation from all walks of society in Malta.

Sensing the public mood and reflecting the civic-minded nature of its editorial policy - conscious also of the traumatic setback that Malta had suffered both domestically and internationally - The Times launched a public appeal, to be known as The Times Mnajdra Campaign to raise funds for Din l-Art Helwa.

These funds were handed over to us at the close of the campaign to be used as we deemed fit. As I was then the executive president of Din l-Art Helwa, it is incumbent upon me, now that the funds raised have been expended, to render an account of how this has been done. Din l-Art Helwa feels accountable to the public's generous response.

When we considered the range of candidate projects for funding, we were guided by four broad criteria:

¤ Cost-effectiveness: the greatest good with the minimum financial outlay.

¤ Maximum impact, both in the short and long term, on heritage or natural environment issues.

¤ Greatest educational or heritage or environmental benefit to Malta.

¤ Realistic, feasible and achievable, both in cost and in implementation.

Against this background and after very careful consideration of a number of competing projects, we selected four which we felt met the objectives we had set ourselves.

First, we spent just over Lm10,000 - half the funds raised - on two sustained and carefully targeted educational campaigns directed specifically at children in every school in Malta and Gozo.

The first consisted of the donation to every school of Din l-Art Helwa's 13-part television series in Maltese Wirt fil-Periklu (Heritage in Peril). This series addressed every heritage and environmental issue facing Malta in an objective and extremely graphic way and fitted in well with the school curriculum.

The second was the issue to every school of an inter-active CD-Rom in English, entitled Malta: A Treasure Trove of History, which highlighted Malta's rich cultural heritage and showed pictures of every prime historic monument during every stage of Malta's development.

Din l-Art Helwa feels that these educational initiatives - which we hope are still being utilised in our schools - underlined our belief in the need for better education both about what we have in terms of our patrimony and also about the children's civic responsibilities and duties as future citizens to protect it.

The balance of the funds - about another Lm10,000 - has gone on two projects in conjunction with Heritage Malta. The first is the creation of a series of information panels along the path from Hagar Qim to Mnajdra explaining to the visitor what he is looking at and emphasising its importance in world heritage terms.

The second project consists of a joint partnership with Heritage Malta for the rehabilitation, conservation and future manning and opening of the outstanding catacombs of Abatija tad-Dejr, in Rabat. Our financial contribution from The Times Mnajdra Fund - together with equivalent funding from Heritage Malta - will go some way to saving this hitherto neglected site.

Din l-Art Helwa thanks The Times and its readers for their generosity. We hope they feel the funds they donated to us have been wisely spent.

The Times has been consistently at the forefront of those in the media urging the safeguarding of Malta's cultural heritage and the protection of our environment. Din l-Art Helwa publicly pays tribute to its unremitting efforts - and that of its readers - in this vital regard.

Mr Scicluna is vice president of Din l-Art Helwa.