The history of Maltese emigration

A treasure trove awaits all those who seek it at Dar l-Emigrant, in Valletta, where Monsignor Philip Calleja has painstakingly archived anything and everything related to emigration.

Mgr Calleja, who heads the Church's Emigrants Commission, is in the process of organising all the photos, documents, newspaper cuttings and a whole range of other items he collected over a lifetime's work among migrants in preparation for the launch of the Migration Museum.

It is intended to provide a repository for the preservation of information about an important period of Maltese social history, telling the story of the tens of thousands that left Malta in search of pastures new and making such material accessible to the public.

The Emigrants Commission plans to house the museum at its offices in Castille Place. The five-storey building covers a surface area of about 120 square metres, meaning the museum can be spread over 600 square metres of floor space.

The intention is to set up a visitors' centre along with exhibition space, a catering outlet, fully-equipped lecture rooms and study rooms.

A digital section, which, in Mgr Calleja's words, can replicate a country such as Australia through state-of-the-art audiovisuals, will take prominence on the top floor of the building. Digital archiving will also provide people with the opportunity to search for information quickly and easily.

In addition, an existing auditorium lies silently in wait for its first visitors on Dar l-Emigrant's bottom floor. The intention is to screen a 20- to 30-minute video there giving an overview of the emigration phenomenon that occurred in Malta in the first half of the 20th century.

The planned museum's location is also fitting because it is at a perfect vantage point, just behind the Upper Barrakka gardens in Valletta, where one could have had a clear view of migrant ships leaving for faraway, unknown lands in the 1940s and 50s.

Unfortunately, funding for the project is not yet secured in spite of an application filed with the EU, however, Mgr Calleja is determined to open two years from now - some time at the start of 2012.

His heart's desire is to tell the story of Maltese emigrants that literally worked their way up from the dirt to become multi-millionaire success stories, facing trials and tribulations but always keeping the memory of their homeland alive.

Unifying people through the museum is an important concept to Mgr Calleja, because he feels it would serve to forge a link between people who left these shores long ago and those who remain. "The Maltese spirit has been taken by the Maltese to foreign lands and it lives on in them today," he said.

Mgr Calleja can be contacted at Dar l-Emigrant, Castille Place, Valletta, VLT 1062 via telephone on 2122 2644/2123 2545/2124 0255 or via e-mail at maltamigrationmuseum@melita.com.