Refuge and Reconstruction

For Adam Azraq Saidjem, learning to skate often begins with a fall. A child is afraid of falling, hesitates, then eventually gets back up and tries again. Through repeated attempts, they gain confidence. “That’s when I realised that roller skating can teach you much more than just technique. It can instil patience, discipline, confidence and resilience.”

Known on social media as Adam Skater, he is the founder of SkateUni, a free and inclusive rollerblading community he has built up in Malta. The project began as a personal passion. Adam says he was captivated by the sense of freedom and movement that rollerblading gave him. Gradually, the sport became a way to meet others and, ultimately, to bring them together.

Today, SkateUni organises sessions in various locations across the island, open to beginners and experienced skaters alike. Children, parents, Maltese families and refugees come together there, including some who have lived at the Ħal Far open centre. “We may have different backgrounds, cultures and experiences, but when we put on our roller skates, we become one community.”

This sense of community lies at the heart of SkateUni. Sport provides a way of communicating that does not depend on everyone speaking the same language. You learn to stand up, you help those who fall, and you celebrate others’ progress. Simple gestures which, according to Adam, gradually help to break down other barriers. SkateUni therefore aims to offer more than just a sporting activity: a space where everyone can take part at their own pace, meet other people and find their place.

For more than twenty years, Ħal Far has played a significant role in Malta’s system for receiving asylum seekers. In response to the increase in arrivals via the Mediterranean in the early 2000s, the government gradually developed several facilities there. In particular, the Ħal Far Tent Village opened in 2006, before the management of the open centres was taken over by the Agency for the Welfare of Asylum Seekers.

The photographs show one of these accommodation areas, where prefabricated units and shipping containers serve as housing. This type of facility has regularly been criticised for its living conditions, particularly due to the heat in summer, the cold in winter, overcrowding and the site’s geographical isolation.

Ħal Far is situated some distance from the main urban centres and brings together, within the same area, open reception centres and detention facilities – separate from one another but part of the same landscape dedicated to migration management.

It was in this context that he spent several years working in Maltese detention centres. At Ħal Far, his work took various forms: cultural orientation courses, social support and pastoral visits. “I’d never planned to work in the field of migration. It just happened that way,” he sums up.

Mario emphasises an important distinction: in his view, detention centres are not reception centres. In Malta, detention has notably been used as a matter of course for people who have arrived irregularly by boat and wish to claim asylum. These facilities are also situated in military zones, at Ħal Far or Ħal Safi, far from the main urban centres.

Before 2020, Mario was able to gain access as part of his work. He describes the conditions back then as ‘extremely difficult’, with shared dormitories offering little privacy, inadequate sanitary facilities and problems accessing clean water. The inability to store food was a particular problem during Ramadan. Residents were not allowed to leave the section in which they were housed at will.

Here, the immediate priority is very practical: to provide temporary shelter, food and clothing to people who sometimes have nowhere else to go. But the centre’s main aim is to help them gradually regain a stable situation.

Anna Maria, who manages the Welcoming Centre, explains that she works with each resident to draw up ‘a personalised plan’. Whether it involves looking for work or accommodation, training, healthcare or dealing with administrative procedures, the support provided depends on each person’s individual situation. Accommodation thus serves as a starting point – a period of stability during which people can begin to rebuild their daily lives and regain a greater degree of independence.

The centre is one of several services offered by the Migrants Commission, which also provides social support and free legal advice. Mario Gerada, who has been Head of Pastoral since 2021, works in particular with the various migrant communities in Malta and advocates for their rights.

The Welcoming Centre thus exemplifies a different approach to reception. Located a few kilometres from the isolated state-run facilities at Ħal Far, its aim is no longer simply to provide accommodation for people, but to give them the time and the means to regain their independence and shape the next stage of their journey in Malta.

Just a few months earlier, Zied was still living in a Migrants Commission accommodation centre – a situation he would probably never have imagined a few years earlier. In Tunisia, he had been a professional tour guide for nearly twenty years, showing visitors around the country’s historical and natural sites. “It wasn’t me who chose Malta; it was Malta that chose me,” he sums up.

In 2023, as Tunisia’s economic situation deteriorated against a backdrop of political instability that had persisted since the 2011 revolution, he received an offer to work as a tuk-tuk driver and guide in Gozo. After a brief spell in Saudi Arabia with his wife and son, he accepted. He was familiar with the Mediterranean, and Malta did not seem so foreign to him after all.

For a year and a half, he drove tourists around Gozo. His customers’ repeated comments on the quality of his explanations eventually sparked an idea: to return to being a full-time tour guide, this time in Malta. Zied then enrolled at the Institute of Tourism Studies to prepare for the Higher National Diploma in Tourist Guiding. History, archaeology, art history, languages and field trips formed the backbone of an intensive one-and-a-half-year course.

On paper, his experience gave him a head start. He speaks seven or eight languages to varying degrees, including Arabic, Tunisian, French, German, English, Italian and Maltese. His German, which he studied at university, now enables him to work regularly with German-speaking groups, whilst his command of French is another asset in a sector dominated by English.

But in Malta, his main obstacle does not lie in his books. As a national of a country outside the European Union, Zied has to pay substantial tuition fees whilst also covering a particularly high rent. He works alongside his studies, sometimes day and night. Added to this are the regular renewals of his residence permit, with procedures that can take several months. He jokes with his Maltese and European classmates: whilst they have to get one degree, he has to get two – one from ITS and one from Identità Malta.

Eventually, the pace wears him down and affects his attendance at lectures. He therefore accepts help from the Migrants Commission, which enables him to be accommodated in the Welcoming Centre of Balzan and means he no longer has to work solely to pay for his accommodation. He remains grateful to the organisation and its staff, even though he describes living arrangements that were at times difficult in a place housing people facing very challenging social circumstances.

This celebration lends a religious dimension to a mission which, in day-to-day life, is also profoundly social. In its Jubilee message, the Catholic Church calls, in particular, for migrants to be welcomed with respect for their dignity, for the most vulnerable to be defended, and for them to be given access to employment, education and a place in society. This vision is put into practice in Malta by the Migrants Commission through the provision of accommodation, social support, legal aid and integration work for migrants and refugees.

The Mass thus brings together several aspects of the role played by the Maltese Church in migration issues. Standing alongside the archbishop is, in particular, Deacon Jesmond Schembri, director of the Migrants Commission. In a country where Catholicism remains deeply rooted in its heritage and culture, welcoming the stranger is presented here not only as a humanitarian act, but as the concrete expression of Christian values of solidarity, dignity and hospitality.

Spark15 was founded over ten years ago by a small group of young refugees and asylum seekers. Most had arrived in Malta by boat, often alone, with limited knowledge of English or Maltese. Some hoped to continue their journey to the United States, while others would eventually stay on the island. “Spark15 provided them with friendship, a community and a voice,” says Paul Galea, who is now the organisation’s secretary.

A teacher by training, Paul first joined an NGO simply because he wanted to volunteer. At the time, migration was a regular topic in the Maltese news, most often portrayed in a negative light. He wanted to understand what lay behind these narratives. He then began working with a group of young adults who would gradually form the core of Spark15. More than ten years later, he is still there.

From the very beginning, the organisation chose to base its initiatives on the needs expressed by those directly affected. Three main areas quickly emerged: education, community gatherings, and advocacy. Sports were later added to the mix. English classes help people acquire the language skills needed to work or continue their education. Group activities help break down isolation. Advocacy efforts aim to bring attention to the difficulties refugees continue to face.

“Football isn’t just a sport, an English class isn’t just about language, and iftar isn’t just about food.” For him, these activities serve the same purpose: to bring people together, foster friendships, and build a sense of belonging.

Dursa knows firsthand how important that sense of belonging is. His own experience as a migrant deeply influences his perspective on integration. He knows what it means to arrive in a new country, adapt to an unfamiliar environment, and try to rebuild a life there. That experience, he explains, taught him the importance of meeting people who can offer support—but above all, who can provide opportunities.

This is also what, in his view, sets Spark15 apart from an organisation focused solely on providing aid. Dursa himself started out as a volunteer, gradually became involved in organising activities, supported the community, represented the association, and eventually became its president. Today, Spark15 proudly asserts its identity as an organisation led by young people and refugees. For Dursa, those who directly experience the consequences of migration policies must be able to participate in decision-making, lead their own projects, and make their voices heard.

He thus rejects the notion that refugees should be viewed solely as recipients of aid. “Behind every migration story, there is a person with hopes, skills, and ambitions.” His goal is not so much to create a dependency on aid as it is to build confidence and enable each person to become an active member of the community.