Children are not just the future, but also play a vital role in the present, President Marie Louise Coleiro Preca said this morning at the inauguration of the President’s eco-park, located within the President’s Kitchen Garden in Attard.
She explained that without the help of the Ministry for Energy and Water Management, Project Managers, experts and all the infrastructure workers, the dream of the first eco-park in Malta would have not developed into a reality.
The President’s Eco-park is targeted at children aged between 2 and 10 years old, and is fully sustainable by means of solar, wind and kinetic powered systems, which whilst the children play and explore they are also enhancing in an educational experience on the subject of renewable energy. The park offers educational, interactive and fun filled physical fun for all children, and the structures work with solar energy or else convert children’s kinetic energy into electrical energy.
President Marie Louise Coleiro Preca said that it was has been the best initiative over the five years of her presidency, as it focuses on the child’s right to play, learn and participate. “All the work we do is to provide a better place for our children, and that it is fitting that this eco-park is inaugurated 30 years after the Convention of Children’s Rights.” She also said that the park is not the last project to focus on the installation of renewable energy in recreational spaces, and that “it is our responsibility to take care of our ecosystem and to take responsibility of the damages we have done to our environment and tackle climate change.”
Minister for Energy and Water Management Joe Mizzi explained that the park is in line with the National Energy and Climate Plan for 2021-2030. He explained that the plan is to promote the installation of renewable energy sources in recreational spaces to help attain Malta’s target for Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy and Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction. “Whilst helping our country to focus on the implementation of renewable resources, the park is also providing interactive fun for children.” He highlighted that the park is an extremely important project and part of the long term process the Government is pushing towards more dependency on renewable energy.
“This new interactive park will provide a new experience for children as they play and learn” said Anthony Gatt, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry for Energy. He said that the planning for the recreational park took into measures that children deserve the best childhood and education; which is what the eco-park is designed for. Children are able to both play and learn about the generation of renewable energy; as the children move the equipment, it generates energy to make a noise or switch on a light, which will encourage the children to continue moving and playing. “The park will also be able to function during bad weather, through the installation of a new rain water system which can store the water appropriately.”
Nationalist MP David Agius thanked the work of the President and the Ministry towards the development of the first Eco-Park. “It is a project which focuses on the development of our children and of the importance of renewable energy.”