A group of activists who are trying to stop development of a site near the American University of Malta in Senglea and Cospicua have managed to reach their target of raising €5,800 in less than a week by crowdfunding.

The funds will be used to fight an appeal by the AUM after the Planning Authority in November rejected its application for a development permit for an extension.

The activists are members of an organisation – known as Azzjoni: Tuna Artna Lura (Give us back our land). They set up the GoFundMe page on January 15 and collected €5,802 from around 130 donors. 

One person – who wished to remain anonymous – gave €1,000 to the cause, while most donated amounts between €10 and €200.

Some people left comments and messages of support on the page after giving money.

One man said: “I donated because I believe that slowly we will not be able to call Malta ours. We will just be redundant pawns in a chess game,” while another added: “The heritage of the area where we live must be preserved for the future. The areas under threat are public spaces for the people, not greedy construction speculators.”

The co-founder of the organisation, Rebecca Cremona, said she was very touched by people’s generosity, which she hoped would help stop further construction around the university in the Cottonera. 

“We are very happy to have reached our target in just six days – especially in January when parting with money is more difficult for everyone. It just shows there is an appetite in Malta for action and people want to do more than just complain about the problem and the destruction of our historic areas.”  

What next? 

The activists say they will now put the money into employing an architect and lawyer to challenge the Jordanian owners of AUM, who plan to develop a large dormitory in an open area of Senglea, extend the AUM's  existing waterfront campus building and restore and enlarge the dilapidated Knights' Building next door to that. 

The university says it needs the additional space as it looks to expand in the future. But activists say the plans would completely ruin the Cottonera waterfront skyline and obscure Senglea's iconic fortifications from view. 

After closing the donations page the group thanked everyone and reminded donors that appeals can be a lengthy process. They also assured everyone that they would be transparent about how the money will be spent: “We appreciate your trust and will be updating you about the case and the disbursement of the funds for the expenses as things proceed. These appeals take time, so we will all have to be patient.”