[Photo - From
left to right: Mr Kevin Mahoney, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry for Home
Affairs, National Security & Law Enforcement, Mr Alex Muscat,
In their common mission to ensure communities in Malta are able to build their sense of belonging, the Ministry for Home Affairs, National Security and law enforcement and the University of Malta’s Faculty for Social Wellbeing have kicked off a collaboration that prioritises research on society’s wellbeing.
The Ministry will be providing the University Faculty with a €20,000 research grant that will fund a qualitative analysis on community-related issues. These funds will be transferred in two instalments, one at the beginning of the exercise, and the rest upon its completion.
The main aims will be to understand migrant communities by identifying influential persons within them and training them to act as a liaison to host community and services. The research findings will also serve to provide policy and action recommendations to enhance the sense of belonging to Maltese society by the different communities it is made up of.
Speaking at the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the two entities which took place on Friday 2 October 2020 on Msida Campus, the Dean of the Faculty for Social Wellbeing, Prof. Andrew Azzopardi remarked that this is an opportunity to reiterate the Faculty’s commitment to strengthening and enhancing the corpus of literature, research & data on social well being & quality of life issues in Malta.
Through this agreement, the two entities are also committing to setting up and delivering a number of courses in social science which will eventually lead to academic qualifications, and hopefully the subsequent engagement in public debates on issues concerning wellbeing.
University of Malta Rector, Prof. Alfred J. Vella, augured the Faculty and the Ministry for this purposeful exercise which will undoubtedly benefit present and future generations. “The University values diversity within our Community, and is pleased to be collaborating on this initiative which will leave a tangible impact on the needs of society.”