Minister for Equality and EU Affairs Helena Dalli yesterday had a very strong message for the students and adults who attended the National Youth Conference on Integration.

“Integration comes natural to children. Problems arise with us adults,” she said in her improvised speech at the event held at St Clare’s Collage in Gzira. The Gzira community, as the headmaster of the school explained, experiences a lot of multiculturalism.

“Children are born without prejudice. What I fear is that what they learn in school is lost when they go home. At school they learn how to relate and deal with people of different cultures. But at home, maybe the adults’ attitude teaches them something which is completely opposite,” Dalli said.

She said that the problems arise with adults but insisted that this can be addressed properly. “Prejudice existed in the past and it was solved. It happened with women who did not have the right to vote. That hurdle was overcome and society has now accepted the practice completely. Even for integration. There is room for much more progress, but the goal can be achieved.”

Dalli said that conflict in societies is normal but the authorities must help to instil cohesion.

She explained that the government will publish a national strategy for integration of migrants with a vision for the year 2020. The strategy will be led by the directorate within the ministry. Its sole purpose will be to help migrants integrate in a coordinated manner. The strategy will be based on equality, respect to diversity and social cohesion.

 

Migrant student tells her story

14-year-old Emily Loucaides was born to British parents in Limassol, Cyprus. Together with her parents, she lived in Cyprus until the age of six before her family moved to the UK. She said that even while in the UK, she felt like ‘the foreign girl’ and her time in school was difficult.

In 2012, Emily’s family moved to Malta, where she started he scholastic year at St Clare’s College Primary in Sliema. “Like every eight year old girl, I wanted to make friends. I was happy and enjoyed it.”

“I remember looking at the flags hanging from the main stairwell of the school, a different flag representing each of the different nationalities of students. I was asked to put up the Cypriot flag. That was a proud moment for me.”

Emily believes that migration brings many benefits to schools. “Students with different backgrounds create a wider range of personalities.” She mentions, however, that migration can bring about the erosion of an individual country’s unique culture.

 

Son of Syrian migrant recalls how family integrated in Gzira

Omar Rababah is a 26-year-old social worker, son of a Syrian national. He told the students present that his father had first migrated to Malta alone but struggled to fit in the different culture. He went back to Damascus and his father, Omar’s grandfather, decided to accompany his son to our tiny island to encourage him to stay.

“My father came here, got married and in 1991 I was born. When I was still very young, my father was playing professional football with Gzira United. He was, what one would say, the foreigner of the team. They had won the league and he was respected a lot by the Gzira community.”

Omar said that when he had asked his father how he had managed to integrate, his father told him that the first trick was to learn the language.