Through an initiative led by SportMalta, thousands of children from Maltese and Gozitan schools united together for various activities with their teachers for National Sports Day.

Apart from this day dedicated to sporty activities, this special day also served as a promotional means to highlight the importance of physical activity for children in schools to develop a strong and healthy lifestyle.

The Minister for Education and Sport, Clifton Grima, said that “Through SportMalta, we are conducting various initiatives to try and push our children to participate in sport and physical activity from a young age throughout the entire year”. Speaking at the San Ġwann Primary School which he visited to see these sporty activities taking place, Minister Grima also discussed his wish for Maltese society as a whole to grow more aware about the importance of physical activity in maintaining a healthy lifestyle – especially through the participation of sport.

SportMalta conducts numerous initiatives tied to promoting sport and physical activity; the #BeActive campaign and the European Week of Sport are two examples of such initiatives that have been conducted over the last month. The Ministry for Education, Sport, Youth, Research and Innovation is investing in open spaces in schools through a continuous rehabilitation project for sports grounds. This comes with the principal aim to improve sports-related infrastructure in government schools to improve recreation for children as well as to enhance their level of sports/physical education.

Works have been undertaken in the Imrieħel Secondary School and in the Kirkop Primary School to add artificial turf into their respective grounds. These works also fall part of a national policy that is addressing the high obesity rates that currently exist amongst Maltese children with the scope of fostering a physical and sporty lifestyle across the Maltese islands to counter these statistics.

Over the last two years, various projects have been completed in schools with a total investment of around €1 million. Two major projects in this regard have come from the Foundation for Tomorrow’s Schools (FTS) through which a sports complex worth €4.6 million was recently inaugurated in the Santa Luċija Secondary School just a few days ago. This €4.6 million investment while a separate €14.3 million investment has also recently been undertaken to develop a new football ground in the Naxxar educational complex.