I walk into a government flat. Eight or 10 people live in this two-bedroom apartment. A 10-year-old comes to me, with the saddest of looks in her eyes: "I am hungry," she says to me. Awkwardly, I turn over to her mother... who has a pair of broken eyes that split your heart in two: "I have nothing Andrew in the fridge, nothing, absolutely nothing to give her to eat." I left the flat, went to some friends and relatives to ask for some stuff not knowing how else I could help this family.

Life study 2

A young man, brought up by a single parent, turns up at my office when I still worked as a guidance teacher at one of the sixth forms. "I am giving up school," he tells me. "What," I say. "Yes, that's it," is all he manages to say with a broken voice. "But you were doing well," I said, raising my voice. "You cannot give up, you cannot let go of your studies. You need to study to find a decent job." He keeps looking at the ground: "I know," he answers, "but my mum can't afford to buy me more books."

Life study 3

I walked into what looked like "30 years ago" - a building decorated with absolute darkness, except for a 25 watt bulb. I stride up the staircase and up another and another. I see this young woman, in her 20s, holding a baby with Down syndrome. "Please come in." Two rooms and a loo, no bathroom, a flat infested with cockroaches, which crammed the dirty walls. Water was oozing from the roof. The apartment was a re-done slum that smelt of sadness and helplessness. Not knowing what else to say, I foolhardy asked her: "What can I do for you?"

Poverty exists... and how it does!

Most of us would appreciate that the notion of the welfare state arose from the social democratic and liberal mindset to articulate social responsibility for collective needs, namely, well-being, education and collapsed family units. Yet, despite regular processes of reform, improved social services and enhanced social benefits this system has been criticised as not always being approachable, democratic and effective in fostering inclusion.

Then along came "charity", a manifestation of altruism and benevolence, which took a recognisable form in the 19th century as a reaction (and possibly rejection) to (of) capitalism that brought about sloppy economics, especially when it came to people laying at the fringes of society. Social operators consequently developed initiatives to meet the imperative of help for the casualties of the economic system.

Is this what we are dealing with locally?

The L-Istrina campaign is one national reaction. In this year's initiative, we have witnessed a new way of doing it. This came about following a number of decisions taken by President George Abela. The message was clear. We seem to be moving from "a charitable helpless model" to "a forward-looking helping model". It was an effort that saw at the forefront the forthcoming principles of "help"' versus "'helplessness", "solidarity" versus "belittling" and "participation" versus "rivalry".

In more ways than one, this campaign started looking like complementing the government's welfare responsibilities, minimising social tensions and going against the grain of community deterioration. This campaign also created a distinction between terminology that may invoke pity to a ratio-emotional model of converging feeling with action. This time round, people became aware of the long-term negative effects these campaigns can leave on people who are already at the margins because of their social conditions if we are not prudent and sensible.

Drawing from the latest L-Istrina take, such "helping" campaigns need to be founded on the notions that: our society needs to be inclusive; giving the cash comes with giving time; we keep in mind that the people we are helping are nothing less than us; we need to base our contribution on moral currency that complements the coinage; we need to realise people are getting through our welfare net and this needs to be fixed ASAP; and that we need to find alternative models when funding charities, namely, social economic funding, corporate funding responsibilities, cooperatives and state-NGO partnerships, to ensure continuity in the service.

The value in helping lies in the fact that we need to have the courage to reconcile our social responsibilities with the sometimes contradictory capitalist "free market". We need to improve the quality of life of people who are at the margins.

Really and truly helping is one of the loops in effective governance and active citizenship. The way we look at a person who receives charity may make the difference between a gesture of love and solidarity and one that is detached and aloof. L-Istrina can take a leading role in the transformation of perceptions that is to say a balance between "creating a kitty" and "generating community".

Dr Azzopardi is lecturer at the Department of Youth and Community Studies, Faculty of Education, University of Malta.

andrew.azzopardi@um.edu.mt