St James Cavalier recently hosted an art exhibition with a difference. Such an event normally concocts perceptions of well-known or aspiring artists employing the finer side of their talents to express their views and feelings on some aspect of life. This time round those talents came from members of the Caritas Malta Thursday Club who took part in an exercise which showed that art can also be a vehicle for social inclusion.

The exhibits included paintings, collages and montages made up of various materials including paper, fabrics, metal, paint and other media. Striking among the exhibits were masks, some in bright colours, and one in black with a tear rolling from one eye.

Caritas Director Mgr Victor Grech said when inaugurating the exhibition that Caritas was mostly known for its work to rehabilitate victims of drug abuse. However the organisation had many other activities to support people in need, among them the Thursday Club which seeks to ease into social inclusion persons with mental health difficulties.

The idea to hold this exhibition arose out of a youth exchange programme through which Caritas Malta sent five of its budding volunteers to Luetjensee in Germany to participate in the municipality’s KJR-Stormarn social inclusion programme “Voices for inclusion”.

Caritas Volunteers Coordinator Vanessa Sammut said that on their return the youths were keen to put to practice the experience of using art to empower people. She added that Thursday Club members did not lose any time to set to work as a team and sometimes individually, to go through the process of originating ideas and bringing them to life in 20 exhibits.

Mgr Grech said that Caritas Malta continues to reach out in many ways to people in need to ensure that the dignity and self-esteem of the individual are promoted to strengthen Maltese society.