The Alfred Mizzi Foundation has pledged its help to the LWIEN Service, a service run by the small but dynamic NGO St Jeanne Antide Foundation. The Alf Mizzi Foundation is committed to providing crucial support to NGO initiatives that fill a glaring gap in service provision for very vulnerable individuals and families. On an annual basis, it identifies needs that would not otherwise exist without start-up funding and some sustained support from corporate bodies with a robust corporate social responsibility. Such is the case with LWIEN Service, which helps those people who with love and much courage, struggle to care for a family member with chronic mental health problems.

Relatives of chronically mentally ill families needlessly endure pain and suffering because of the overwhelming nature of their situation. The Alfred Mizzi Foundation believes this category of care givers remains largely hidden and voiceless, and it is for this reason that, during 2011, it will be helping the St Jeanne Antide Foundation and the LWIEN Service.

For the families and relatives of people with chronic mental health problems, finding a support system becomes at times extremely difficult, since more often than most services focus on the sufferer. The situation of family caregivers of the mentally ill is exacerbated by the fact that support to these people is minimal and their invaluable role and contribution is largely unacknowledged and unsupported. The St Jeanne Antide Foundation, just like the Alfred Mizzi Foundation, seek to identify these ill-served or under-served categories of families in difficulty, as provide them with much needed support and a voice to beckons to be heard.

“The Alfred Mizzi Foundation is committed and extremely proud to be helping and supporting LWIEN this year. LWIEN provides professional support to families where chronic mental health of a young person or adult is a major stressor and family breaker. Family caregivers neglect their own pain, disorientation, lack of knowledge about the illness of their family member, its treatment and effects in order to focus on their role in providing regular home-based care and support. We are glad to be able to contribute to this noble feat,” said a spokesperson for The Alfred Mizzi Foundation.