Nationalist MP’s honoraria finances €162,000 in community projects for children

Nationalist MP Claudio Grech’s parliamentary honorarium has financed a total of €162,162 in social projects through his Save A Life Foundation over the past seven years.

Grech presented an annual report of his foundation’s work to the Speaker of the House, detailing 10 community engagement projects that affected over 1,000 children and youths in educational, sports, social and cultural activities in his first district constituency of Valletta, Hamrun, Marsa, Floriana and Santa Venera.

The foundation is run by Grech and his wife.In 2013 and in 2017, Grech, a management consultant, entered into formal undertakings to invest all honoraria into the Foundation and any top-up necessary to finance the projects.

The ten projects promoted by the foundation are: extended premises for the Hamrun Spartans nursery, a virtual classroom at the San Ġorġ Preca Primary School in Valletta, the interactive school of Mmusic at the Soċjeta Filarmonika Vilhena in Floriana, the creation of the Akkademja Kulturali Pawlina of Valletta for children, a programme for the revival of traditional artisan skills for Valletta youths with the Għaqda Festi Esterni San Duminku, after-school academic assistance to children in Valletta with the Tagħba Foundation, a musical academy for the Soċjeta Mużikali San Ġużepp in Hamrun, support to the Ursoline Sisters in Pietà and the Ghaqda Festa tal-Madonna ta' Fatima for a programme for artisan skills for youths, a children’s music educational programme with the Societa’ Filarmonica Nazionale La Valette in Valletta, and a workshop facility for artisan skills and trades for Marsa youths that facilitates migrant children integration, together with the Ghaqda Festi Esterni Ssma Trinità.

“The setting up of the Foundation was a dream coming true for us. A dream we now would like to grow into a standalone structure that will continue its operations through the transformation into a social enterprise that will focus on offering a new hope for youths who would have lost their way and need a support mechanism to bring them back on track and make a success out of their life. Looking back the experiences in these projects will be the ones I shall cherish most out of my political life,” Grech said.

The foundation has also financed research on the drug addiction problem in the southern harbour region and exploration of potential projects which could make a marked improvement in addressing the issue; established a drug rehabilitation centre for youths and a programme to support women facing difficult circumstances in their pregnancies.

House Speaker Anglu Farrugia thanked Grech on behalf of the Parliament of Malta. “Claudio Grech is the only representative I know in my 25-year career in parliament to have donated all his honoraria.”