Located just next door to the University, the new Youth Hub officially opened on Wednesday provides a welcoming, multi-functional space that also offers practical support and friendship.
When a ‘Youth Hub’ was inaugurated last Wednesday at Dar Manwel Magri, the Jesuit residence near the University of Malta, the project involved more than simply removing a little-used library in a large area at the front of residence and replacing it with easy chairs for students to ‘chill out’ in.
The opening of wide doors at the front of the building, located next door to one of the University’s main entrances, has facilitated access to its entire ground floor, while the Jesuit community has moved its living quarters to the first floor. Previously people had to climb a long flight of stairs to reach the main door.
Most of the books previously held at the Jesuits’ library have been donated to the MUSEUM library in Blata l-Bajda, while some went to the Jesuits’ Mount St Joseph retreat house in Mosta.
The project’s realisation is a long-held dream come true for the local Jesuit community. Provincial delegate Fr Michael Bugeja SJ pointed out that Fr Gianfranco Matarazzo SJ, provincial of the new Euro-Mediterranean Province of which Malta forms part, gave the project the green light soon after the new province was created two years ago.
The project, he added, was perfectly in line with one of the Jesuit Order’s four recently adopted ‘Universal Apostolic Preferences’ for the forthcoming decade – that of ‘Journeying with youth’.
It is hoped the Youth Hub will act as a magnet, attracting more than just casual drop-ins, but that individual students, youth groups, communities and lecturers will be encouraged to use to full capacity the building’s various other facilities.
The small rooms and a large hall on the ground floor offer versatile space for individual or group study, collaboration, conversation, presentations, discussion or simply a comfortable place to hold meetings and seminars, or meet and greet guests. Such meeting places are sometimes lacking on campus.
The support the place can offer will complement the academic work of students on campus, which inevitably creates periods of stress
The ground floor also hosts a large kitchen and dining area, and a prayer room, while a small number of bedrooms on the first floor are available for short stays.
Ultimately, the Jesuits’ hope is that at the Youth Hub, students and staff will find a welcoming space that provides them with practical support in their daily concerns, while the Jesuits will have additional opportunities to befriend them and engage at a deeper level of human and spiritual formation. A member of University Chaplaincy staff, student volunteers or a Jesuit community member will always be present to welcome visitors.
University chaplain Fr Patrick Magro, who also lives at the residence, said: “We occasionally have groups of students who ask to spend a few days with us during their study periods, during live-ins in preparation for voluntary work experiences and in the run-up to Easter.” This weekend a visiting group of Spanish students from a Jesuit university college was being hosted at the residence.
The project’s next phase involves installing a lift to the first floor and ‘doing up’ the central building’s courtyard to include seating.
In the near future, the fields at the back of the Jesuit residence are expected to be developed to include a new University residence for foreign students and visiting academic staff, as well as new buildings hosting the faculties of education and social wellbeing. So rather than being at the periphery of the campus, the Youth Hub will find itself more at the centre of life on campus.
University Rector Prof. Alfred Vella, who was present for the inauguration, recalled that this year marked the 250th anniversary since the University was formally set up in 1769 after the Jesuits were expelled from Malta by Grand Master Manuel Pinto. The University took over the Collegium Melitense, which the Jesuits had founded in Valletta in 1592. But relations between the University and the Jesuits have long since improved, and there is a long tradition of Jesuits being appointed as University chaplains.
The project enjoys the University’s full support, and following meetings between Prof. Vella and Fr Magro, the University is studying ways of offering practical support to the project through the provision of staff and services.
Prof. Vella remarked that the Youth Hub’s location right next door to the University was very appropriate as the support the place could offer would complement the academic work the students undertook on the campus, which inevitably created periods of stress. “Even University staff will find the place very useful,” the rector joked, “and slowly, slowly we may take over this place too”.
Auxiliary Bishop Mgr Joseph Galea Curmi, who blessed the Youth Hub, thanked the Jesuit province for the project, adding that it was also in line with Pope Francis’s call for the promotion of a “culture of encounter”.