The initial phase of the Digital Migration Museum being set up by the Emigrants' Commission at Dar l-Emigrant, in Valletta has been inaugurated by Archbishop Paul Cremona.

Emigrants' Commission director, Fr Alfred Vella explained that the first phase of the museum, which is being carried out by the Exalta Group, features a digital collection management system that will record, consolidate and preserve all the Emigrants' Commission's vital records and artefacts relating to Maltese Emigration for posterity.

The project has to date seen the completion of all the extensive preparatory work in the hall being dedicated to the main section of the digital museum. The hall has been transformed to serve as the core of the digital museum while retaining its role as a place for certain activities such as lectures.

The central digital information podium has also been put in place. The podium, which is in the main hall, was financed through a Vodafone Malta Foundation grant. It has eight LED screens, eight touch screen interfaces and computers to drive the digital system. This presents an opportunity to display a large number of items in an interactive way. Visitors will be encouraged to use the central podium to browse through digital information using natural hand movements.

Fr Vella said the Government has promised financial support to the project.

The Migration Museum Council has been informed that a donation will be effected in the coming weeks. Another main benefactor was Luke Gauci. The council is hoping that more benefactors will come forward to help the project continue to move ahead.

The next step will be the acquisition of more technological facilities for the digital information set-up in the main hall, the organisation of an archive and a library in another area of the museum, and a film on migration to be shown at the modern auditorium of Dar l-Emigrant which is already operational. The time-frame planning of these phases depends on the funds available.

Emigrants' Commission Founder and president of the Migration Museum Council, Mgr Philip Calleja explained that the scope of the museum was to record how emigration started off and subsequently developed, as well as how the communities of Maltese emigrants integrated in the various countries where they settled and what they contributed in these places.

It is hoped that the museum will also further strengthen the migrants' sense of belonging to their Maltese origin and thus continue to maintain strong ties with Malta despite the geographical distance and cultural variations. Another aim for setting up this Museum is for the Maltese in Malta and the Maltese Communities abroad to understand better the reality of the phenomenon of migration and the value of social inclusion.

Various studies have concluded that the number of people of Maltese origin living in the main migration countries and others surpasses that of the population of the Maltese Islands.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.