Five social projects receive much-needed funding at the 2017 Malta Social Impact Awards

The second edition of the Social Impact Awards was held last week at Le Meridien. Eight social projects were pitched to a full audience of philanthropists, businesses and individuals interested in being part of a change. The awards offer the opportunity of both financial and non-financial support to implement social projects which will have a positive impact on the community.

This second edition of these awards saw €128,600 given out as grants. Five of the finalists won support and the winning project, Enlight: Promoting Mental Health, Preventing Mental Illness through a free walk-in clinic for students at Giovanni Curmi Higher Secondary submitted by OOPS the Organisation of Psychology Students, received a grant of € 40,000 and pro-bono services from PWC Malta.

The Social Impact Awards are organised by The Gasan Foundation and Inspirasia Foundation Malta. Mediterranean Bank, part of the MeDirect Group, also came on board this year as headline sponsor.

Other financial awards were sponsored by Betsson Group, Oliver Voigt and Wignacourt Museum. The aim of the initiative is to bring the private and social projects closer together to offer opportunities for financial and non-financial support to develop and see to fruition a project that will have a positive social impact on Malta.

"We are trying to do something important, trying to get people to create new initiatives that will have longstanding and not short-term social impact," said Joseph A. Gasan, founder of The Gasan Foundation and Gasan Group of Companies.

After an overwhelming number of applications received back in June, those shortlisted received nonfinancial support in the shape of mentoring services by Takeoff Malta and all eight finalists were paired with an executive from the Malta Academy of Chief Executives, which also partnered with the Social Impact Awards to help finalists put together a great pitch.

The other projects that were awarded were Happy Children by Friendship Cards that received €35,000 grant; Hospice Malta for the After Hours Call Services was awarded €20,000 and Sports4Youth submitted by Malta Youth Athletes Network won €20,000. An impressive €5,300 was donated by the audience for the Audience Participation award which went to Migrant Women Association project Saha! − a healthy, international cuisine food truck that employs and empowers migrant women. They were also awarded the ZAAR crowdfunding campaign matched by Core platform and an additional grant − the awards for Saha! amounted to €16,600. All winning projects will receive pro-bono services from PWC Malta and mentoring services.

All finalists had strong interesting projects and these included iContribute, Greenroads Malta and Giving Gardens by Terra Firma Collective.