Is there a better venue for a bread exhibition than an old bakery hidden away in one of Qormi's narrow streets? A group of young people from St Sebastian's Parish Youth Centre are out to prove there isn't.

The bread festival, which has become a yearly highlight since 2001, kept the youths busy throughout summer as they planned and prepared to bring out the Maltese traditional techniques of bread-making in an appealing exhibition.

Grace Agius, who coordinates the youth group, said the youths have collected traditional bakers' tools, created posters and even a multimedia presentation about what is arguably humanity's most important staple.

Over the past five years, the group has carried out considerable research on bread, not just about how it is made but even how it features in religious and folklore traditions as well as in Maltese idioms and literature.

Maria Louisa Saliba, one of the youngsters involved in the festival, explained: "We've also gone round interviewing bakers to find out that they still use archaic words to refer to traditional tools, words which are being lost from the Maltese language."

Geraldine Powell, another girl in the group, explained that until 30 years ago there were about 90 bakers in Qormi alone. Yet their number is slowly dwindling because young people find a baker's job to be too strenuous. They all attend secondary school and becoming bakers is not on the cards for them.

Only one of the youths, Noel Hili, is the son of a baker, Joe Hili, who bakes 500 loaves a day in a wood-fired oven.

The bread exhibition, which is supported by the Qormi local council and the Pinto Band Club, will be on at St Roque Street between Friday and September 29 from 7.30 till 10.30 p.m.

On Sunday, September 24, a food festival, obviously involving bread, will take place in front of St Sebastian's Church between 7 and 11 p.m.