Around the day that ‘Becs’, who died of a rare cancer in 2021, would have started her university studies, a new school named after her started welcoming students in Ethiopia.

The Rebecca Zammit Lupi Lower Secondary School is one of three new buildings dedicated to the memory of Maltese people who died within the past few years. The other two – a playground and a kindergarten in Jimma Bonga – have been named after Jonathan Chetcuti and Karl Pace.

Rebecca Zammit Lupi would have started university this year. Photo: Darrin Zammit Lupi

They were funded through donations, including a crowdfunding campaign and support from the Sigma Foundation, the corporate social responsibility arm of the Sigma Group.

Rebecca was herself of secondary school age when she died aged 15. Also known as ‘Becs’, she was diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma, a rare and extremely aggressive form of bone cancer, in 2019.

Creating something positive out of the most terrible of life events shines a glimmer of light into what is a very dark space

Less than six months later, her battle would be exacerbated by a global pandemic, which impacted her treatment plans and studies, but this did not dampen her spirit.

While receiving care at the Rainbow Ward, she had campaigned for online education for sick children in hospital.

She will now live on through the school, which has just welcomed 80 students aged 14 and 15.

The Rebecca Zammit Lupi Lower Secondary School is also temporarily hosting some primary school students while some safety issues in their own, much older school building, are resolved.

“Around the day Becs should have started her first day of university life – unless she’d have taken the gap year she used to talk about to travel – it was heartening to know that so many students were able to start secondary school thanks to the amazing generosity and massive fundraising effort that so many in Malta and elsewhere contributed to,” her father, Darrin told Times of Malta, as he was sent photos and footage of the students.

“The school that bears her name is no consolation for her loss – nothing can ever be – but having it come to fruition, creating something positive out of the most terrible of life events shines a glimmer of light into what is a very dark space and I remain convinced that it’s something she’d be proud of.”