Sunday family lunch will be given a multicultural twist through a project that aims to gather Maltese and non-EU families round a table for a home-cooked meal.

“Having lunch with another family is such a simple thing but it’s not really done… Through the project families are being given the opportunity to experience cultural diversity in their own homes,” said Dana Herndon from NGO Get Up Stand Up that is running the project.

Called ‘Next Door Family – EU-Inclusive Neighbourhoods’, the project aims to promote intercultural dialogue and celebrate diversity. The idea is to introduce Maltese families to non-EU families who are living in Malta permanently or temporarily.

Malta has been criticised for not doing enough to encourage the integration of migrant families. Over the past few months, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights and the International Commission of Jurists(an NGO network of human rights lawyers) called for a programme to address the social exclusion of migrants and for a strategy to promote local integration and combat racism and xenophobia.

Ms Herndon said families interested in taking part can sign up for the project and will then be matched into pairs – according to their interests, the age of their children and other factors that will give them fodder for conversation.

Once matched, the two families will have lunch at the home of the Maltese or foreign family. A volunteer will be present during the lunch to facilitate a relaxed platform for integration.

This lunch will take place on November 18. Before that, several other activities will be organised to enable families to mingle.

“We hope the families will remain in touch after this but our main aim, for now, is to ensure that families are open to the idea,” Ms Herndon said.

The project will officially kick off on June 30 when anyone interested is invited to the Independence Gardens, Sliema, between 4 and 11 p.m. for an event that will include international cuisine, live musical performances, and crafts from all around the world.

The Next Door Family EU project, partly financed by the European Fund for the Integration of Third Country Nationals, is also taking place in Italy, Belgium, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary and Spain.

For more information, go to www.nextdoorfamily.eu or visit the Facebook page Next Door Family EU Malta.