Finding a stable job and striving for better integration seem to be the most common New Year’s resolutions for African migrants living in Malta.

Spending Sunday hanging around with friends at the scarcely decorated Marsa open centre, migrants spoke about their hopes and fears of the coming year following the festive season.

Hussein Abdi Risak, 31, said he toasted the New Year at the Valletta party, which he and his friends attended primarily because entrance was free and most of them are out of work. He said he avoided the transport chaos that followed the party by going home on foot.

He also got the chance to send his best wishes to his family, who are still living in Somalia, over the phone.

“At times like these, you appreciate Malta for its weather,” he said, joking about the freezing climate some of his friends experienced in Europe over the holidays.

While the free New Year’s Eve parties in Valletta and Floriana were a favourite with several migrants, some said they had few other options.

Adi Kulibali, 27, from the Ivory Coast, pointed out that people with “black skin” were not welcome at many of the clubs in Paceville. “I wanted to go to a disco and dance but Maltese people don’t really like to play with us. So I just stayed home and slept,” he said, wearing a resigned but jovial smile.

Another thing that kept him at home dreaming of leaving the island was the fact that his business as a mechanic was not raking in much money.

Mohammed Abdi Ahmed, 27, from Somalia, a laundry worker who speaks fluent English, is also hoping to find a better job this year, pointing out he is only called to work “every so often”.

He said Malta’s small size meant work was always going to be a problem but this was worsened by the “racist” attitude of some Maltese due to immigration being such a recent phenomenon.

“It’s different from Libya where many people are violent. When I was there they would often gang up to fight and kick us. In Malta, there isn’t much of that but you still feel left out and unwanted.”

He said he was lucky to have spent some time over Christmas visiting friends and family in the Netherlands, where he said people were more “open-minded” and friendly. “But in Malta it is getting better. It’s already quite different to how it was in 2004.”

Not all his colleagues shared his optimism about changing attitudes. One migrant said he spent New Year’s Eve at Chick King because he could not afford to do anything else.

“This year, I will do my best and hope I will be happy,” he said, adding the past year had been a constant struggle to find a job and have some money to live with.

He said he was eternally grateful to the Maltese soldiers who saved him from the sea three years ago but now feels there is no one to help him and is particularly angry when he is refused entry in nightclubs.