In the grand setting of Verdala Palace last November, under the patronage of The President, seven nominees for the first-ever ceremony celebrating the Peter Serracino Inglott Award for Civic Engagement, met to receive due recognition for their wonderful voluntary work in a wide range of civic endeavour.

They were: Anselmo Bugeja, an active volunteer with Fondazzjoni U; Philip Chircop, founder president of Nanniet Malta; Fr Emanuel Cordina, Founder of the OASI Centre in Gozo; Din l-Art Ħelwa; Hospice Malta; the Migrants Offshore Aid Station; and a posthumous nomination for Maurice de Giorgio, founder president of Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti.

Looking back at the entrants for the 2015 awards, it is fair to conclude without risk of contradiction that they were a remarkable cohort who covered well a span of worthy nominations – ranging from overseas philanthropy to social needs, from cultural and environmental heritage to humanitarian support – which the award had been designed to attract.

The award rewarded civic participation and engagement: the process of working together to make a positive difference in the life of our communities and developing the combination of skills, knowledge, values and motivation to enhance our quality of life. The 2015 finalists formed the benchmark and the vanguard for the nominees yet to come.

Although the judging panel in 2015 could not duck their responsibility for making a decision which saw the magnificent life-saving work of the Maritime Offshore Aid Station take the award – a modest glass statuette – there was general agreement that there were in reality no winners, no losers among the nominees. Only exemplary, dedicated and worthy participants whose nomination for the prize was reward in itself.

The annual award is a permanent monument to Fr Peter Serracino Inglott, a founder member of The Today Public Policy Institute

It constituted notable public recognition, designed to honour an individual or organisation that by their actions had made such a positive difference to our civil community.

The Peter Serracino Inglott Award is given annually to any individual or organisation that in the opinion of the judging panel makes an outstanding and significant contribution to civic thinking and engagement in a Maltese context.

This year has again provided The Today Public Policy Institute – which had inaugurated this annual award in memory of Fr Peter Serracino Inglott – the opportunity to give due public recognition to those many organisations and individuals in Malta quietly and modestly labouring on behalf of their community in a voluntary capacity, doing good for society.

The excellent nominations submitted last year have inspired other individuals and voluntary organisations to be put forward for an award this year.

The annual award is a permanent monument to Fr Peter, a founder member of The Today Public Policy Institute, Malta’s only independent, non-partisan think-tank, who died in 2012. For almost four years, Fr Peter made a considerable contribution to the various issues which were tackled by the think-tank during his time on the board.

It is for these reasons that it established this award in his memory to honour his contribution to civic thinking and engagement and to recognise and encourage all those hard-working members of civil society in Malta who are following in the footsteps of everything Fr Peter held so dear.

During his lifetime, he was one of Malta’s foremost thinkers and a Renaissance man. He was a philosopher, theologian, academic, writer, mentor and priest. Reflecting the Aristotelian idea that thinking is completed by action, one of the areas closest to Fr Peter’s heart was civic participation and creative social innovation.

He was a man who was greatly loved, recognised not only for his wisdom, originality, open-mindedness, enlightenment and puckish sense of humour, but also as a man of wonderful priestly charisma who contributed a great deal of inspiring work to the intellectual, emotional and spiritual development of Maltese working youths. He was the personification of civic-mindedness.

Civic thinking, civic participation and civic engagement are those individual or collective actions or thinking which identify and address issues of public concern. They epitomise the process of working together to make a positive difference to the life of our communities. We see it each year at Christmas in the generous L-Istrina fund-raising effort.

The Peter Serracino Inglott Award may be made in recognition of any number of a range of issues. For example, those addressing social or environmental causes. The effective implementation of social action. An important contribution to education or public policy. Creative thinking in any field of Maltese research. Any innovation that makes a marked improvement to the quality of life of our society. The scope has deliberately been made wide to cover any initiative or project which has as its focus civic engagement and the advancement of Maltese society.

The award for 2016 was made last week in the Council Room of the Malta Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry by kind permission of the president of the Chamber. This year there were two outstandingly worthy finalists: Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti and the HSBC Water Programme – ‘Catch the Drop Campaign’, a project which, most impressively, attracted the active involvement of over 500 volunteer members of HSBC staff.

Deciding which of these two organisations should take the 2016 award posed a considerable challenge to the judging panel, who had to make a choice based on the quality of the submission and its social benefits, scale, sustainability, relevance and importance. After much deliberation, the final decision declared Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti the winner.

The citation for the foundation read as follows: “Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti was formed 24 years ago to bring to the attention of the Maltese people (and the world) the impressive scale and breadth of cultural heritage riches to be found in Malta. It was essentially about the democratisation of Maltese cultural heritage bringing culture and hidden treasures to the public through exhibitions, publications, conferences and museums.

“The exhibitions which the Foundation has mounted have covered a range of hidden treasures of Malta, from the Maltese tal-lira clock to sedan chairs, to silver, costumes, furniture and jewellery, the paintings of Gianni and Edward Caruana Dingli, and others.

“Moreover, through the outstanding medium of the quarterly Treasures of Malta magazine, the foundation has been responsible for collecting, documenting and disseminating information and research into every aspect of Malta’s cultural and historical heritage. The magazine is packed with every kind of well-written, well-researched article about Malta which the intelligent reader could possibly wish for. It has also published an outstanding list of beautifully presented books on every aspect of Melitensia.

“The superb restoration of Palazzo Falson in Mdina (which will forever stand as the bench-mark for what can be done in this field) has achieved a standard of excellence, organisation and presentation second to none.”

While the judging panel rightly considered that the commitment of hundreds of HSBC volunteer staff to the imaginative Save the Drop Campaign was greatly to be commended, it felt on balance that Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti’s outstanding work had to be recognised as a well-deserved reward for the last quarter century of conspicuous and remarkable service to the country.

On a personal basis, the 2016 Award was for me a wonderful posthumous tribute to my friend, the late, great Maurice de Giorgio, founder of the organisation who passed away last year.

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