While many teenagers sleep in on the weekend, 15-year-old Evair Grech makes his way to the dog sanctuary of Luqa to spend time with his canine friends.

"When I'm at the sanctuary I find it hard to leave. To me the dogs are like friends," the teenager says in a soft voice.

Mr Grech's love towards animals was a major driving force behind the collection of 40,000 signatures in a petition in favour of animal welfare.

Last week the Abandoned Animals Association (AAA) presented the petition, described as "the biggest in Malta", to Environment Minister George Pullicino who said that the setting up of a centre for animal welfare is soon expected to be discussed at Cabinet level.

The 15-year-old is AAA's youngest member, the association's founder Freddie Fenech explained as he recalled the day the boy entered his life three years ago.

"It all started with Ninu. Evair saw the picture of Ninu, a crippled dog in need of a wheelchair, in the newspaper and phoned me up.

"He told me he wanted to help Ninu and AAA. Some time later he turned up at the Luqa sanctuary with some money he had collected at school. And that marked the beginning of his adventure within the AAA," Mr Fenech said.

"I felt sorry for Ninu. He was born crippled and I wanted to help him. But when we got the wheelchair, he died," the boy added.

Ever since then Mr Grech has attended the sanctuary whenever he has some free time, that is, on the weekends during the school semesters and during summer holidays.

"When I'm there I feed and clean the dogs and even play with them. They are my friends."

But the teenager has taken his commitment towards animals way beyond cleaning and playing with them.

Two years ago he and Mr Fenech started the petition calling for the setting up of an animal hospital.

It was Mr Grech's job to spread the word and collect signatures among his friends and young people his age.

Although he is glad that over 40,000 signatures have been collected so far, he is at times concerned because he feels that although many Maltese people love dogs, many don't want to look after them.

"I wish I could tell people out there to stop abandoning dogs and to call the police if they see any dog being ill treated," he said.

He goes on to explain how he tries to encourage people his age to lend a hand at the sanctuary but many are disgusted to clean up after the dogs and some are scared of them.

But he was never scared. "Not one bit," he says as he adds that he intends to continue helping at the sanctuary regularly.

"AAA is important. If Freddie were not around, there would be no one to help the dogs at the sanctuary. God knows what would become of them," the young boy said.

The AAA can be contacted on 7929 7930 or 9946 4182 or by visiting www.aaamalta.com.

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