St George’s Square will be transformed into a huge floral carpet of some 80,000 potted plants during this week’s Valletta Green Festival. This year’s edition of the infiorata is paying tribute to Malta’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union.
The main attraction of the last edition of the festival was the opening of the secret gardens at the Archbishop’s Palace and the cloistered monastery of St Catherine’s. These were opened to the public for the first time in 400 years and will be open again during this edition on Friday, Saturday and Sunday (9am to noon, 4pm to 9pm).
Anumber of stalls and tents set up in St George’s Square will be working towards raising awareness on environmental issues and sustainable development.
As in previous years, Garby and Tidy, along with Green Roofs, will be present. Joining them will be Malta Road Safety and an ERA (Environment & Resources Authority) photo exhibition.
Eko Skola together with a number of NGOs – fish4tomorrow, Żibel, Birdlife Malta, Sharklab-Malta, Friends of the Earth Malta and the Kooperattiva Kummerċ Ġust – will provide informative material about the impact of waste littering through engaging, educational and interactive activities.
Other activities during the weekend include musical acts Jackson Family Traditional Music Band, Tikka Banda who will be interacting with the festival-goers around Valletta, an environmentally- themed Open Mic, an upcycled musical instrument workshop and various storytelling activities in front of the Law Courts on Saturday and Sunday . These workshops are tied to the Valletta 2018 project led by Leanne Ellul, Jo Caruana and Angele Galea, as well as a rag rug workshop led by Angele Galea.
The project is a Valletta 2018 collaboration with the Maltese Archdiocese, the Ministry for Transport and Infrastructure; the Ministry for Sustainable Development, the Environment and Climate Change; the Environmental Landscaping Consortium (ELC); the Parks Department, as part of the Tree 4 U (34U) campaign; and WasteServ Malta Ltd; with the support of Inizjamed and several local environmental NGOs.
The event runs until Sunday. For more information, visit https://goo.gl/oINziS or call the Valletta 2018 Foundation on 2124 2018.