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Mumenti The project Mumenti, supported by Arts Council Malta, kicked off on Saturday 17th February by means of a half day Seminar organised for those who hold a decision- making role or are coordinators of a section or working team within Azzjoni Kattolika Maltija (Malta Catholic Action). Around 40 people, aged between 20 and 70 years who voluntarily lead different sections and groups of the organisation, participated in this seminar held at the Iklin Parish Centre. This event was a way for these members to continue to get to know each other and to be supportive of each other. It also aimed to help them express the beauty they experience and the challenges they face whilst carrying out their mission within the organisation. An artistic workshop was held, with the help of Ian Stilton, an artist by profession, who helped the participants discuss ways how to overcome such challenges and to think about what makes them resilient and want to continue to persevere in their role within the organisation. He delivered this by exploring symbolism and visual representations in the workshop. The participants used different comparisons to represent and symbolise their thoughts and emotions.  These group leaders and team coordinators learnt about the importance of resilience and perseverance. Despite the several difficulties they might face, on a personal level or within the group, there is the need for resilience for that individual to adapt and continue moving forward. It is through perseverance that one reaches their personal and collective goals even though they might face failure. The 17th of February was also intentionally chosen for this seminar due to the fact that this week, the Maltese Catholic Action is celebrating its 94th year of its founding in Malta. The organisation was started in Malta by a small group of University Students on the 5th of April 1929, thanks to the guidance of Fr Danjel Callus. On the 19th of February 1930 the official statute of the organisation was approved by the Archbishop of that time. From then on, this date has been commemorated as the anniversary date of the organisation. Since then, more youth groups have been founded in different parishes. Their aim was to take an active role in conveying the message of the Church and to be of service to others. This small initiative developed into one of the largest Maltese Catholic organisations in existence today. The members of the organisation commemorate this special anniversary through a number of meetings and activities which are taking place this week. This seminar was only the start of the project Mumenti which will continue until February 2025. The next part of the project will see a number of creative workshops come to life, where with the help of many established locals artists, the Maltese Catholic Action will be bringing together members coming from different generations and different localities, to continue to get to know each other but also to continue to express themselves in a creative manner. The beauty of all this is that the organisation will bring together elderly members together with young people under the same roof and they will experience something they maybe have never experienced before. The creative workshops will focus on art, music, dance, drama and writing. The writing workshop will include young and elderly people corresponding by post, which may be something young people no longer do. The aim of all this is to continue to build and strengthen the sense of community and fraternity within the organisation. In the coming months the organisation will also be planning a number of cultural visits around Malta, where the participants involved will have the opportunity to go discover cultural spaces in our country that they may never have had the opportunity to visit or explore. Later on this year, through the Mumenti project, a group of young people will also be trained in setting up and creating a podcast where they will have the opportunity to interview and discuss topics and subjects with the older members of the organisation.

World Youth Day Naomi Galea, a 19 year old leader and member of ŻAK Mosta explained her experience of participating in a week of joy, fun, togetherness, and spirituality at this year’s World Youth Day in Portugal. During this week she met with people from all over the world who went to Lisbon with the same purpose: to share the joy of their faith together. This experience really surprised her, as she described it as a unique journey which only a few get to enjoy – to freely express one’s faith openly without any judgements. During the pilgrimage there were two moments which really struck her the most and which she will forever cherish. The first one was the unguarded, genuine exchange of peace during the opening mass. Seeing people coming from different walks of life embrace each other with a sincerity and joy that surpassed language barriers and cultural differences brought peace to her and a happiness which she could not explain – She can only describe this moment as what she think space really means. The second moment was during a WYD concert. As the singer Fr Rob Galea, started singing hymns of love and devotion to God, everyone else joined him, shouting their love for Jesus too. This was a rare unfiltered moment as many have to hide how they truly feel about their faith in their everyday lives and to see all these people shouting about their love for God was truly remarkable. Amidst witnessing all that the WYD had to offer, she feels as if this experience helped her rekindle her own faith. It was the boost she didn’t know she needed, which, during tough times she will look back to, in order to help her with her faith. During his homily on Sunday, Pope Francis emphasised these three points: shine, listen, and do not be afraid. These words truly struck her as they are the path to living freely and joyously through Christ. Naomi’s 17 year old friend Liam Muscat, also from ŻAK Mosta, describes the World Youth day as a memorable experience which he will also cherish for the rest of his life. He was frank and told us that he wasn’t looking forward to the trip. He was anxious that it was going to be a very long and tedious week. But as the days progressed, he didn’t want it to end. He felt as if his connection with God had strengthened, and his mental health was improving. While the main purpose of this pilgrimage was to be more spiritually aware of God’s presence, he also made friends with other pilgrims from all over the world with whom he talks to about Christ. The entire journey made a long lasting impact on his life, but he believes that The Way of the Cross was his favourite WYD event. This event compared modern issues that many teenagers face in their everyday lives with every station of the cross. Each station discussed a hot issue such as, eating disorders, loneliness, suicide, the environment, and many others. A line which he will remember is “What kind of world do we live in, God, where you allow people to die of hunger, while others die from overeating?” This question outlines how unjust the world we live in really is and that it is ok to question God. This activity also showed him how the Catholic Church is not stuck in the past but is constantly evolving to meet the needs of society today. World Youth Day enriched him spirituality, kindled unexpected friendships, and evoked a sense of hope inside of him. The Way of the Cross really changed the way he perceives the church, making him shed a positive light of its reforms and evolution and he witnessed the love for everyone, no matter what their situation in life currently is. Jamie Farrugia, a 24 year old leader and member at ŻAK Birżebbuġa, explains how she had always wanted to go to the World Youth Day. She remembers the time she had just started attending ŻAK in 2016 and a number of leaders and members had just returned from the World Youth Day in Krakow and remembers them mentioning what an amazing and memorable experience it was. A few years later, the World Youth Day took place in Panama and there it was announced that the next one would be in Lisbon. However, as we all know, due to the pandemic everything was postponed and she even questioned herself whether she would get to see Pope Francis in presence. Luckily, the Pope made a shirt visit to Malta last year but she feels that she was not well prepared for this event and that it went by so quickly that she did not even understand what the preseice of the Pope really means. The World Youth Day, she continued to explain, was a completely different story. Apart from the anticipation she had throughout tha least year, they had numerous meet ups, reflections and preparations as a group, and this group spirit continued to strengthen once they arrived in Lisbon. The first three days were focused on the Catechesis, which are sessions where participants reflect on their journey, their mission and their active contributions in their Catholic organisations in society. Moreover, they reflected on what brought them to that moment, what was their call in the World Youth Day. Jamie describes the experience of welcoming the Pope at Parque Eduardo VII. She understood much more the significance of the Head of the Church passing in front of them. His blessing, his words were accepted with an open heart, together with millions of other young people from around the world, who were all eagerly there in the name of peace and love. Even though Jamie mentioned she did not make a lot of personal connections that she is used to making in international youth exchanges and training seminars, there were still numerous moments that she cherises. One moment is when a Brazilian family turned around to hug them, after the Pope had just passed through the crowd. The moments of joy and positive energy where she danced and sang with other young people. The moments of silence when one and a half million young people were on their knees during the adoration at Campo da Graça. She also mentioned that the Pope’s words, through his simplicity,

SVYO Research Project Final event concludes 3-year research project on youth volunteers At the end of November, Żgħażagħ Azzjoni Kattolika (ŻAK) hosted around 60 volunteers from Italy (Azione Cattolica Italiana), Romania (Acţiunea Catolică din România), Spain (Acción Católica General) and Malta (ŻAK Malta) for the final part of a three-year partnership research project entitled ‘Supporting Volunteers in Youth Organisations (SVYO)’, with the aim of discovering the underlying issues regarding the long-term commitment of young volunteers in these four Catholic Action organisations. The programme for these 3 days kicked off with a conference on Friday morning, where the results of the research were presented compiling results from the quantitative analysis together with the results from the qualitative part. As the research coordinator Mr. Anthony Mifsud, explained: “The objectives of the research were quite wide-reaching in the sense that we had 4 associations, which means 4 countries with a lot of questions on what are the needs of young people are, what has been catered for and what is not being catered for, what the youth volunteers are benefiting from the organisations and what is making them leave the associations, and for this reason, we had to use a mixed-method approach.”  He also explained that the process started with a census of all the associations, this included 50,000 young people, followed by in-depth questionnaires to around 37 ex-members. This helped in discovering why members were leaving the organisation. Afterthis, a quantitative questionnaire was distributed to present members of the organisations. This part included around 2000 respondents. Then the last part of the research consisted of a deeper analysis by means of a qualitative part. This was characterised by around 25 focus groups held in these 4 different countries. The objective of the different workshops, which then followed during the rest of the weekend, was to delve deeper into the results, especially those presented during the focus groups. Among the points that came out from these results was the question of the identity of the organisation, the aims of the organisations, whether these are clear and whether these are being met. Another workshop focused on the strengths, the needs and the opportunities present for the organisations. Throughout the workshop, the idea of collaboration was emphasised by encouraging organisations to share the strengths, give their feedback and help each other by sharing the burden of the challenges, to be able to move forward together. The number of workshops also helped to set a way forward and establish several priorities for the organisations to work on: on a national level but also for all the 4 organisations on an international, collaborative level. Among the priorities that were established were the importance of the core of every organisation, the importance of putting God at the centre, evangelisation, more in depth formation regarding faith and the importance of action, especially social action. In fact, while workshops on Friday and Saturday helped the organisations to simply observe the picture of the organisations as it is, without any judgements or fast solutions, Sunday workshops focused on starting to establish these priorities. Each organisation will now continue sharing and working on these priorities, for the better of its members. this exercise was a very important one, especially in the international context of the church … this project came at the right moment where we were already prepared to take a step aside and to listen As Ms. Codruta Fernea, Local Project Coordinator for Acţiunea Catolică din România stated, “this exercise was a very important one, especially in the international context of the church” with the importance of the synod and the emphasis on listening. She continued that “this project came at the right moment where we were already prepared to take a step aside and to listen”. Meanwhile Ms. Kirsty Cauchi, a member and leader in ŻAK and participant during the 3-day seminar said that she found it both interesting and informative. She added that she gained more information about the organisation that she is part of and about the members she works with. For her, it was also a beautiful experience and opportunity to discuss with other international organisations. Finally, Ms. Emanuela Gitto who is responsible for the youth coordination of the International Forum of Catholic Action stated that she hopes that this process does not really finish with the project end, but rather to “keep working together towards new opportunities to share and propose this dialogue beyond borders”. The project ‘Supporting Volunteers in Youth Organisations’ (SVYO) is co-funded by the European Union in the framework of Erasmus+ programme and has kicked off on the 1st March 2021 and will keep running till the 31st of December 2023. The study will be made available to the public at the end of the project.