When Form 3 student Andre Abela heard that his fellow student was sick with leukaemia last year, he was the first of his class to volunteer to visit him regularly in hospital.

“Andre immediately came up to me and asked whether it would be possible to take his portable PlayStation and games to hospital for his friend to play during visits,” his guidance teacher Thelma Desira said.

The 13-year-old boy helped organise group visits and throughout both school and summer months, Andre visited his sick classmate until the boy succumbed to his illness.

The actions of Andre, who attends St Margaret College Boys Secondary Verdala in Cospicua, touched his guidance teacher who nominated him for the 2011 Pope John XXIII Kindness Award. The organising committee has chosen him as the winner.

Accompanied by his mother or by Ms Desira, Andre visited the boy every week as he got sicker and sicker.

“He was quite angry that his classmates didn’t show any interest in visiting. When he spoke about all this, I was so surprised that this 13-year-old boy already knew about the responsibility of doing his part and giving some of his time to a friend who was in hospital for months and battling cancer,” Ms Desira said.

In her nomination letter, Ms Desira pointed out that Andre did not fail his sick classmate even though they were different. Even when the student was in pain or following a chemotherapy treatment, Andre would be strong and they spent time talking, watching films or playing games together in visits that would last up to three hours.

There were times – especially in the last three months of illness – when no one could visit the boy because his immune system was very low but Andre continued to keep in touch through Facebook.

“He was not influenced by what the rest of his classmates did but since he believed he should be there for his friend at this time of need, he just did so until the very end. His support was sincere – he never made a big thing out it and it was like the most natural thing he could do,” she said.

When Facebook failed to work, Andre turned to his guidance teacher again, worried something had happened.

“I gave him the direct number to the hospital room and he used to call him directly,” Ms Desira said.

Ms Desira said Andre’s “purely altruistic actions” were a lesson to her. “Even though the ill student was not the popular guy type at school and they weren’t the best of buddies, Andre understood his classmate still needed a friend at this time of need,” she said.

The award ceremony will take in summer at the Palace, presided over by the President.

The aim of the award is to spread a culture of solidarity and to mark the anniversary of the death of Pope John XXIII. It is spearheaded by Peace Laboratory director, Fr Dionysius Mintoff.