For well over 50 years Din l-Art Ħelwa has been saving and protecting historic buildings and monuments to offer the future Maltese generations a heritage to be proud of.
Some months ago, the Din L-Art Ħelwa council took an unusual decision in order to make a gift to the people of Malta, a gift that will be a monument to the resilience, the courage and the hard work of our people; particularly our migrants who travelled to Australia in search of work and a new life. Din l-Art Helwa has taken on the responsibility for the restoration of the Australian Bungalow.
This is a large wooden building which for several years has been lying at Għammieri awaiting destruction or restoration. It is a typical house such as the Maltese emigrant in the early 20th century would have found to live in when arriving in Australia, the promised land.
This bungalow was constructed as a model building, so that the people of Malta would know what to expect when they left their Malta-stone dwellings in the Mediterranean to live in a wood-built home which, in the more humid swampy regions down-under, was supported on stilts. It is said that the idea was to dismantle and rebuild the bungalow so as to teach prospective migrants how to construct a home in timber. In the early 1930s this bungalow was moved to The Ghammieri Government Experimental Farm.
In the imminent granting of a guardianship deed over this structure by the Malta Government to Din l-Art Ħelwa, the NGO's Executive President Maria Grazia Cassar, met Environment, Sustainable Development and Climate Change Minister Jose Herrera and Australian High Commissioner Julienne Hince at the Australian Bungalow in Ghammieri where both personalities could see for themselves the potential that this unusual building has both as a historic relic and as a possible Emigration museum.
Also present for the meeting were engineer Joseph Philip Farrugia, who as Council Member of Din l-Art Ħelwa, will be heading this interesting project, DLĦ volunteer Patricia Salomone and Mr Herman Galea Director Rural Development Department
Parks and Initiatives
Din l-Art Ħelwa will be appealing for funds for this important project and will shortly announce fund raising activities. Donations are welcome, for information [email protected]