The selection criteria employed by L-iStrina – the national station’s annual televised Christmas fundraising event – have been called into question by a foundation facing imminent closure due to lack of funds, as this year’s beneficiaries include institutions which are already financed by government, private corporations and the church.
L-iStrina’s organisers this week announced the list of organisations and institutes which will benefit from the largesse of Malta’s traditionally generous population. Apart from the Malta Community Chest Fund, which as always will receive half the funds collected, other beneficiaries include the Eden Foundation – the only NGO offering disability services to also benefit from hefty state financial assistance on a yearly basis, and which this year amounted to Lm310,000.
HSBC’s children’s charity “Puttinu Cares” – a subsidiary of the bank which last year posted record profits of over Lm50 million – will also receive a percentage of the funds raised by L-iStrina; as will a number of institutes, mainly homes for children and the elderly, run and financed by the Catholic Church (see table).
Admittedly, not all the beneficiary organisations have their own external or internal fund-raising mechanisms to fall back on: the Arka Foundation and YMCA shelter for the homeless are examples of charities which rely almost exclusively on such fund-raising activities for their continued existence.
However, one charity organisation which has publicly appealed for help in the face of imminent closure due to lack of funds has been overlooked, and is now questioning the criteria whereby some charitable institutions are rewarded, while others are left out in the cold.
The Equal Partners Foundation provides support to close to 200 families who have member/s who have a disability and/or learning difficulties. Unlike other similar support groups, its programmes are delivered within the community; in private homes, schools, places of work, etc.
Over the last three years, its members have increased by 60%; but just last month, the foundation’s executive manager Ms Anabel Mifsud made a public appeal for help in a last-ditch attempt to rescue the foundation from bankruptcy.
“The support the Foundation gives relies on the fees the families pay, the sponsorships and donations we receive, the fundraising we manage to organise, and many hours of voluntary work,” Mifsud told MaltaToday Midweek earlier this month. “The commitment towards the Foundation by all those involved translates into more than 5,000 hours of voluntary work per year. All the professionals working with Equal Partners give one hour out of every 10 hours as voluntary work towards the Foundation. In addition, the senior professionals, who organise all the Foundation’s training, give their training services to the Foundation free of charge.”
Mr. Colin Galea, President of Equal Partners Foundation also explained that for over seven years members of the NGO have voiced their frustration, but without success, that their foundation has not been supported by the government in the same way as the state has been supporting the Eden Foundation for the past 11 years, Besides their public appeal, last month the Foundation had no other option but to increase the fees collected from the parents of children with disability to stave off closure.
It transpires that the government is bound by an agreement signed with the Eden Foundation in April 1996, as a result of which the non-profit organisation enjoys exclusivity when it comes to government funding to NGOs in the disability field.
In March 2006, this “positive discrimination” was questioned in a report drawn up by former finance minister Lino Spiteri.
Spiteri observed that: “given the extent of provision within the State sector, the competing demand for assistance by NGOs, and the right of parents to be free to choose whenever possible, Government should review the agreement with the Eden Foundation, and how it allocates such financial resources should be reviewed. It should determine how best to enable parents who select different programmes to benefit equitably from such public assistance.”
To date, however, the 1996 agreement has not been revised, and in a letter sent to Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi earlier this year, Mifsud wrote: “The Foundation has come to a point where it is struggling to keep up with the current level of services. It is pitiful to note that as per bank statement as at end of September our bank balance went down to Lm3,200.”
Hopes were therefore high for inclusion among this year’s L-iStrina beneficiaries. But the hope was also shortlived.
“We have no idea what the selection criteria were, let alone why our proposal did not meet these criteria,” Mifsud said after learning by means of a letter that Equal Partners would not be considered for this year’s L-iStrina. “This has been another slap in the face for all the members of the Foundation. It is very disheartening and also perplexing. Are we missing something?”
PBS official Andrew Psaila, who heads the L-iStrina team, told MaltaToday that he was not personally involved in the selection process, and that the selection criteria were decided by a committee chaired by Magistrate Jacqueline Padovani Grima.
For her part, Padovani Grima, as is customary with magistrates, said that she was not in a position to make any sort of comment to a journalist. “We don’t talk to the press. It’s one of the rules of the game,” she said when contacted on Friday.
Ironically, the magistrate then suggested contacting PBS for an answer, despite the fact that it was PBS who had directed this newspaper to contact her in the first place.
Either way, the selection criteria for a fundraising activity which traditionally aims to raise Lm1 million remain shrouded in mystery. As does the future of a voluntary foundation whose services provide a vital lifeline for nearly 200 families with disabled members.