Just published: our Annual Report for our activities in 2019

We’ve just published the Annual Report covering our activities for 2019. This report is a mandatory document for our reporting to the Commissioner for Voluntary Organisations as also a confirmation of our committment to transparency and accountability.

The report provides information on the activities, initiatives and engagements we worked on throughout the year. It also gives readers an insight into the major achievements and challenges we faced in the year. Importantly, it provides information on the human rights landscape of 2019 and our position within it.

The report is freely available on our Publications page, here.

This is my introduction to the Annual Report. We’re more than happy to provide more information on the Report’s content and our activities…just get in touch with us.


2019 will go down in history as one of Malta’s most tumultuous years. On-going investigations into the brutal assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia continued to unveil shocking stories of corruption at Malta’s highest political levels, including the Office of the Prime Minister and other Ministries, as well as in Malta’s most prominent and influential business circles. The impact on the nation was unprecedented, with upset crowds – led by civil society organisations – taking to the streets for several days with loud calls for justice, accountability and resignations. At the end of the year, the disgraced Prime Minister resigned as also the disgraced Minister for Tourism and the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff.

The scandals are nowhere near resolved and justice for Daphne and for the criminal activities she was in the process of revealing is far from being secured. In a recent opinion piece, I underlined that, as long as Joseph Muscat and Konrad Mizzi remain members of Parliament, Malta will remain besieged by corruption and criminal activity, unable to restore democracy.

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Personal stories of protecting refugees coming soon: Our Island

My time spent working with refugees has taught me many things: the sheer strength of the human spirit, the tragedy of loss and suffering born of human egoism, neglect and violence, the capacity of the nation state to deny the right to rights and the people’s capacity to be complicit…and also to resist.

Maria Pisani

How does one convey what it was like to work in detention, to someone who has never set foot inside a detention centre? How to bring home the devastating impact of detention, so neatly defined as “deprivation of liberty or confinement in a closed place, which [one] …is not allowed to leave at will”, on the lives of men, women and children, which, even after so many years of working with detainees, even I feel I cannot begin to understand?

Katrine Camilleri

These are excerpts taken from Our Island: Personal Accounts of Protecting Refugees in Malta, a book soon to be published by aditus foundation. Our Island gathers the personal experiences of those people who experienced Malta’s encounter with refugees, as it seeks to document important moments and suggest lessons learnt.

Whilst much is said of refugees in Malta, little is documented in terms of the early years of these arrivals and how, throughout the decades, these arrivals shaped various parts of Maltese communities.

Our Island invited directly involved individuals to write about their experiences, thoughts and significant moments. Our aim is to document important years in Malta’s social and community history, by gathering informal and personal accounts from those persons who experienced it first hand.

The book covers important themes such as the government’s reaction and response, the detention regime, the asylum procedure, rescue at sea, community mobilisation and much more!

We want to share these accounts in order to appreciate them, learn from them and assess the impact of refugee arrivals on Malta.

Contributors to Our Island are: Katrine Camilleri (JRS Malta), Maria Pisani (Integra Foundation, former Head of IOM Office in Malta), Mario Friggieri (former Refugee Commissioner), Michael Camilleri (human rights lawyer), Ali Konate (founder of the Migrants’ Network for Equality), Tonio Borg (former Minister for Justice and Home Affairs), Colonel Clinton J. O’Neill (Armed Forces of Malta), Mgr. Alfred Vella (Malta Emigrants’ Commission) and Paolo Artini (UNHCR).

Neil Falzon, our Director, provides an Introduction.

The book will be published soon and made available either directly from our offices or through leading bookstores. Contact us if you want to reserve your copy (against a donation to the organisation).

Our Island is funded through the Creative Communities Fund of Arts Council Malta.