People who still care

During my visit to Malta in July, I was the beneficiary of €3,000 given to me by the Mission Fund Mosta. This donation was made to help youths continue their college education.

These youths are coming from low-income families and, without this financial help, they would end up without any opportunity to improve their way of living.

During my 23 years in the Philippines, the Mission Fund Mosta has been helping me to improve the lives of so many families by providing a good and sound education for their children.

Today, as I look back and see these families enjoying a better life, I thank God for so many benefactors of the Mission Fund Mosta who continue supporting us through prayers and financial help.

The tears of joy on the faces of these youth on their graduation day is proof that there are still people who care for others, even if they are thousands of miles away from each other.

May I ask all those who care to help the Mission Fund by sending them used stamps and donations with which they could be of help to Maltese missionaries in Third World countries.

Donations can be made online or by direct bank transfer to one of the following accounts: BOV: IBAN no: MT70VALL220130000000 16300798022; APS:  IBAN no: MT67APSB77079005231820000820762; BNF: IBAN no: MT94BNIF1450200000000087963101; and LOM: IBAN no: MT65LBMA05000000000001440822115.

More information can be accessed from the website: www.missionfund.org.mt.

Thank you all.

Sr Celina Cini FCJ –Dinalupihan Bataan, Philippines

Climate change needs to be taken seriously. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

No panic but action

I was five when World War II started in Malta. Probably, I would not have been here to write this letter had some big shot banned the sounding of sirens that alerted us scramble to the shelters when air raids were imminent. His argument: “not to frighten the Maltese!”

Given the alarming nature of the climate situation we are not alarmed enough. Had the world been a bit alarmed, polluting emissions would not have been record-breaking high; air travel would not have been at its maximum; the percentage of non-polluting transport would not be so tiny; new coal mines and oil and gas sources in their hundreds would not be licensed; the word “transition” would not mean “blindfolded postponement”.

António Guterres, the UN General Secretary, is not trying to be alarmist when he says, “the world has gone beyond warming to boiling” or when he says, “we are sleepwalking into catastrophe”. He is just repeating what the overwhelming majority of scientists have been emphatically repeating for years. The pope, too, has long been telling us to believe the scientists.

Of course, we should not panic. Some shrewd businessmen, helped by scientists, are looking at the situation very seriously without panicking. They are even seeing it as a very good business opportunity and making a green revolution out of it.

In some countries, such as Australia, people are realising that ordinary cars are not only harming the atmosphere but also emptying their pockets.

Whatever tiny Malta does is not going to perceptibly affect the world situation. But when will the people in Malta be alarmed enough and intelligent enough to realise that we either go green or perish?

When will our teachers, secular or spiritual, teach our people what the climate crisis means, to be rightly alarmed by it, without panicking, to take the right steps to prevent it and, most importantly, to realise that we have less than eight years to be able to do so. After that it would be like missing the last bus and chasing it in the night.

Albert Said – Naxxar