‘Is there any sense in this?’ - Foreign Affairs Minister pays tribute to teenager killed in traf ic accident

Foreign Affairs Minister Evarist Bartolo has paid tribute to the 19-year-old teenager who died on Friday night in a traffic accident in Mġarr.

In a post on Facebook, Bartolo asked what sense is there when a life is cut so short.

The teenager had died in a head-on collision that took place in Sir Temi Zammit Road at 11.15pm. It involved a Toyota, driven by a 19-year-old of Mosta, who had an 18-year-old passenger, also of Mosta, riding with him, and a Mitsubishi, driven by a 35-year-old man of Mġarr. The three men involved were taken to hospital, with Galea succumbing to his injuries some time later.

Minister Bartolo said the young man, Alan Galea, had taken part in the alternative educational programme which the government had set up (Bartolo was Education Minister until last January).

The minister said Galea prepared a speech which was “short but powerful,” and had told the minister that he had spent the night writing it.

“Alan was the perfect example that there are no students not fit for schools, but schools that are not fit for students,” Bartolo wrote. Some students hate schools because it was the school that hated them, he added.

“When they find the right niche, they go to school with an open heart, and Alan had found his in the alternative educational programme,” Bartolo wrote.

“He had a life ahead of him. Now he has died. Our life is made up of castles on the sand with the waves coming up to destroy wherever they reach. We continue to build, the waves continue to destroy. We must continue to build because it’s better to build for a short time, than build nothing at all.”