The Malta Community Chest Fund will be reaching out to those in need who shy away from asking for help, President Marie Louise Coleiro Preca said this morning as she launched the fund as a new foundation.
The transformation into a foundation means that the MCCF can now register with the Registrar for Legal Persons and become regulated legally, something it could not do as a fund.
The new set up will mean the MCCF will now have a supervision board in charge of policy, an administration board that takes care of implementation and a third, consultative, board.
The foundation will also have other specialised units that will take care, among others, of ethics, medical help, social assistance for disabled people and research and prevention.
Following a minute of silence, in remembrance of the hundreds of migrants that perished in the Mediterranean Sea over the past few days, President Coleiro Preca said the Maltese had a big heart.
The Maltese, she said, had sent thousands of flowers to the morgue, in solidarity with people they did not even know.
And MCCF, was made up of Maltese people’s generosity, she added, speaking at a ceremony this morning, where three people recounted how the MCCF was a “shoulder they could lean on”.
One of these, Maryrose Farrugia, spoke of her son Samuel, who at two was diagnosed with eye cancer in his eyes. He was transferred for treatment from the UK to Switzerland, and by the time he turned five, he had lost both eyes.
His mum had to travel to Switzerland some 48 times, and she said she would not have been able to make it had it not been for MCCF.
President Coleiro Preca said no one chose to be sick, poor or vulnerable, and there were families who were even toying with selling their family house to make ends meet and fund treatment.
“Our aim is that MCCF doesn’t help just those who know about the foundation, but to also reach out to others, through entities such as the local councils and Kullegg tal-Kappillani, because not everyone comes forward, despite their needs,” she noted.
Between April of last year and March, the MCCF handed out more than €2 million in financial aid and €870,000 to help NGOs.
Some 1 million of these funded chemotherapy that is not provided by the state and another €302,000 were allocated for specialised treatment.