On February 23, many roads in the north of Malta were lined with an endless stream of a record 3,600 individuals, running, walking, pushing themselves beyond their limits, to reach the Vodafone Malta Marathon finish line.
There were those who did it as a personal challenge, a new experience, or to better last year’s personal time. And there were many who chose to run or walk the route specifically for a philanthropic cause close to their heart.
Among them was a team of Jesuit priests and lay people who pushed themselves through the kilometers in an attempt to raise funds for a project run by the Jesuit Refugee Service, which will offer vulnerable asylum seekers access to psychosocial and health-related support, the need for which comes as a result of the severe trauma of forced displacement.
The team, called Jesuits & Friends, have made their participation in the Malta Marathon an annual fundraising event themed Run for Others. Last year, €7,000 were raised through their participation in the marathon.
The money was donated to fund iĊ-Ċavetta (the key), a Jesuit-run project that tackles illiteracy among Maltese adults through the Paulo Freire Institute, in Żejtun.
This year, University chaplain, Fr Patrick Magro, once again ran the full marathon, 42 kilometers, while Jesuit provincial Fr Paul Pace, St Aloysius’ College rector Fr Jimmy Bartolo, Fr Mark Cachia (who works with JRS and with the Jesuit Centre for Faith & Justice), and Italian Jesuit Fr Marco Piaia, presently working at the University chaplaincy, were accompanied by 20 friends and colleagues who completed the 21-kilometre half marathon and the walkathon.
The project which the Jesuits & Friends team chose to support, called PATHS, builds on the lessons learnt in the JRS Malta project to provide sheltered accommodation and psychosocial support, implemented between June 2011 and December 2012, and targets the most vulnerable asylum seekers in detention and following their release. It includes building the capacity of mainstream service providers to cater for the needs of an increasingly ethnically-, racially- and linguistically-diverse population.
There is a complete lack of any framework for systematic identification of vulnerable persons among asylum seekers in detention
JRS Malta is proposing to achieve this goal through advocacy efforts aimed at pushing the authorities concerned to put in place a policy on integration, improve the vulnerability assessment procedure and strengthen the capacity of reception centres and mainstream agencies to provide a service through the organisation of a series of training activities for mainstream health and social service providers, thus improving vulnerable asylum seekers‘ access to mainstream services.
In addition, JRS Malta will continue to provide psychosocial services, including those of a social worker, nurse and psychologist, to vulnerable asylum seekers with a view to ensuring that, as far as possible, all in need of services are able to obtain the care and support they require following their traumatic flight from persecution and war.
This service will focus primarily on asylum seekers in detention, given the complete lack of any framework for systematic identification of vulnerable persons and for the provision of psychosocial support within the centres as well as the near impossibility for detainees to access certain mainstream services, such as social work services and psychological support.
It will also target asylum seekers in the community who require support in order to access mainstream services. In these cases, support will be offered to mainstream service providers through the provision of information and sharing of resources, such as cultural mediators.
An online appeal for donations in support of this year’s cause has been running on social media and a secure online donation facility has been created on the local Jesuit website www.jesuit.org.mt. Cheque donations made out to Inservi – Maltese Jesuit Foundation can be sent to Inservi, Jesuit Provincial Office, 78, Marquis Scicluna Street, Naxxar NXR 2067. Alternatively, deposits can be made to Inservi’s BOV savings account 400 218 987 85.
Alison Vella is communications officer of the Maltese Jesuit province.