Pink (May 2018)

issue163∫ May2018

Forming families THE JOURNEY OF ADOPTING AND OF BEING ADOPTED

BORN OUT OF RAPE out to protect life

PUTTING A MOTHER DOWN Disturbin palliative seDation

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16

INSIDE

50

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May 2018 FEATURES

16 PrivateEye to have and to hold From an Indian orphanage to home 21 the little tiger Meeting her biological mum 26 InFocus ‘being pro-life is a feminist issue’ Born from rape and against abortion 30 EyeWitness a different way of dying Deciding when to go and how 39 WomensWorld the buzz of women in business Organising events overseas

FASHION 50 ShowStopper red is for…

Black, white and passionate 62 FashionStory more about Moira Style and times of personalities 66 Pink@TheParty superyacht style Elegant networking event

HEALTH & BEAUTY 75 BeautyParlour party all night long Warming up to hot make-up trends 83 PinkShrink pet love Dealing with the death of a dog

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REGULARS 9 EditorsNote 10 MailShot 45 WomanKind the pen-driving machine Frances Hodgson Burnett 70 ThinkPink fashion 78 ThinkPink beauty, food & events 85 GirlTalk modern [bad] manners Répondez s'il vous plaît 89 SnapShot meeting her match Tanya Gravina

COVER Photography Matthew B. Spiteri ∫ Styling Marisa Grima [marisagrima.com] ∫ Hair Robert Agius ∫ Make-Up Amanda Greaves ∫ Location Luciano Valletta Boutique Accommodation ∫ Model Rebecca @ Supernova MM, wearing jacket, €49.90; T-shirt, €12.99; trousers, €35.99 all Mango ∫ Celine sunglasses, €260, O’hea Opticians.

6 ∫ Pink May 2018

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EDITORSNOTE I’ve never had the privilege of meeting the Caruana Galizia boys, so I can’t say I know them. But I can say I know something about them, having followed their actions and reactions over the last six months, and now, their first interviews in the world’s top-flight news organisations since the Daphne Project was launched.

In the light of all that has unfolded and been further proven over the last couple of weeks, with fingers pointing firmly in the direction some us [sadly, only some] knew from the day of the assassination, it’s hard not to dedicate a page at my disposal to one of the daily scandals that has perpetuated that sinking feeling of living in a ‘disguised’ dictatorship.

But for a moment, today, as I sit in my study, relaxing music playing in the background and the sun finally falling on my desk, I am going to push aside the anxiety that has followed me like a shadow since October 16, 2017, and focus on the Caruana Galizia boys, who, ironically, have given me more solace than they would ever know.

The way they have responded to situations in the wake of their mother’s murder has not only been a prime example of what dignified behaviour and integrity really are – my own knee-jerk reactions were not always as proper – but they have also been a true reflection of Daphne, her bravery and her standards, and consequently, for us bystanders seeking some sort of comfort, testimony that her proud legacy is living on.

It all began when her sons immediately started doing things ‘her’ way – the only way – giving the finger to the prime minister’s unconvincing €1 million offer to find the killer. No, money can’t buy you everything – not even €1.3 million! I gave a pathetic air punch when I heard the news on the radio that day, and the Caruana Galizia brothers unknowingly started to give people… something…

I’m not one to gush about motherhood. My own never welcomed

a fuss about Mother’s Day, which is the broader theme of this issue, and I myself have always resented this status, which is projected as though it is a cut above being a mere woman. But I have to admit, Matthew, Andrew and Paul have allowed me to understand the significance and weight of this role, what it means to bring up children and pass on values… and live through them when you are killed.

While I don’t want to take any credit away from them, or their father’s contribution to who they are, their bravery is Daphne’s bravery; their eloquence is hers; their intelligence too; so is their calm, clear and collected approach when talking about the most horrific things that would send most of us into a screaming match; their unstoppable strength in the face of the nastiest adversity is hers too…

Daphne’s sons represent one side of Malta; that small side, which, despite pathetic and ill-timed calls for unity, could never meet the other side, and is best epitomised in their gesture back in the day to send pizzas with bay leaves and a cultural reference to the Occupy Justice women protesting outside Castille, while the somewhat ‘larger’ side of Malta was calling them prostitutes.

It all started from them – my uncharacteristic focus on the status of motherhood and its relevance in moulding human beings. And it just continued to be reinforced by their bold actions that would have been their mother’s; by the insight they gave us into her home, her garden, the liberal, but also in control, way she brought them up – and her immense success on that front.

They brought to mind a couple of conversations I had had with Daphne, who was quite opposed to having kids late in life and didn’t think much of older fathers too. Of course, given my own life choices, I begged to differ, but I was never irritated by her point of view. I found the other side of this liberal woman endearing and amusing even. I was amazed,

interested and intrigued by the fact that she felt her sons, verging on their 30s, were taking their time to get married and have kids, although I would imagine she certainly never interfered in their lives. I see why her husband said, in an interview, that she was happiest on the occasion of her son’s marriage.

And here, the rage sets in again. She should have lived to witness the weddings of her other boys and become a grandmother too in time – apart from continuing to use her incredible mind to feed ours.

When I received that chilling call at around 4.15pm on Monday, October 16, 2017, on the way back from a swimming lesson, I stopped the car… and everything came crashing down around me. The person on the other end of the line went straight to the subject of Daphne’s sons, referring to her as a mother.

Screaming down the phone in dread and frustration, I said that aspect was totally irrelevant in the grand scheme of things and immediately saw her death’s impact on a world scale, even beyond the collapse of Malta’s democracy, and further still that of her family.

I yelled in anger that her boys were grown men and would move on; that her assassination was so much more than the death of a mother.

Today, now that we have witnessed the worldwide impact of Daphne’s killing and it’s far-reaching implications, I can look at the mother in the investigative journalist; at the idyllic childhood she created for her boys; at the lessons to be learnt from her – and now their – principled ways; on the responsibility that motherhood is for the future and standards of our country; on the satisfaction and pride she must have had in getting it right; on her excellence in that area too.

Maybe of the many things she has left behind, which continue to be a thorn in someone’s side, and could one day bring about change, the most important Daphne Project was her honourable sons.

May 6, 2018 ∫ Pink is a monthly magazine ∫ Issue 163 ∫ Executive editor Fiona Galea Debono ∫ Publisher Allied Newspapers Ltd ∫ Printing Progress Press Ltd ∫ Production Allied Newspapers Ltd ∫ Contributors Robert Agius, Tezara Camilleri, Edward Curmi, Mary Galea Debono, Claire Diacono, Amanda Greaves, Marisa Grima, Vanessa Macdonald, Daiva Repečkaite, Lara Sierra, Antoinette Sinnas, Virginia ∫ Design Manuel Schembri ∫ Photography Brian Grech, Matthew Mirabelli, Kurt Paris, Chris Sant Fournier, Matthew B. Spiteri ∫ Advertising sales Veronica Grech Sant [2276 4333; veronica.grechsant@timesofmalta.com].

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Pink May 2018 ∫ 9

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THE LETTER THAT TICKLED PI SUCCESS STORIES Hi to all at Pink and well done for the wonderful job in creating yet another fabulous issue of the magazine! I particularly loved reading this month’s PrivateEye feature [He Lives On, April 2018]. I liked the interviewees’ success stories after having been faced with life's adversities. Any input from citizens to protect our islands’ environment is laudable and one should simply be grateful for the work that Annika Gollcher, Susan Vassallo and Ghislaine Calleja are doing [LifeStyle, Three Green Goddesses]. EyeWitness [Heroes In Our Midst] on educational professionals in their various roles was also very interesting. Providing education in all its forms has always been a vocation, but it has to be more so in our present times. The FashionStory feature [And the Award Goes To], covering 20 years of Malta Fashion Awards, was also fascinating. To see a venture starting from nothing turn into a national event is a feather in Adrian Mizzi’s cap. I also enjoyed reading WomanKind [The Modern Medieval Woman], the ShowStopper fashion shoot [Spring Is In the Air], together with the TheUniform article covering Milan Fashion Week by Caroline Paris [Fashion On Demand] and Dr Edward Curmi's piece on adolescents [PinkShrink, An Inevitable Turmoil?]. Thanks, and please do keep presenting us with many more Pink publications.

DANIELA TESTA, FROM B’KARA

The writer of the letter of the month wins a Jimmy Choo eau de parfum; a manicure; PLUS a selection of Diego dalla Palma make-up products, all from Chemimart.

HOSPITAL EDUCATORS EXIST Dear editor, the article on teachers, Heroes in Our Midst [EyeWitness, April 2018], really brought to light that hospital educators actually exist. What a good idea – to make certain that young patients don’t miss out on their schooling while they are in hospital. Teachers, in general, are a very dedicated lot, but to be able to teach children who are sick and injured requires a lot of courage and patience. I wonder if other countries have similar systems? If not, they should follow Malta’s example and start hospital educators of their own. Well done!

ANNA VASSALLO, FROM QAWRA

KEEPING A LEGACY ALIVE The story I enjoyed reading most was He Lives On [PrivateEye, April 2018] by Lara Sierra. The fact that the widow remained strong and had the courage to raise two kids through such a painful period in her life is inspiring. It makes me appreciate more what I have and also the fact that I have family and friends, who surround me with love and support through various instances in my life. Not only does this father’s legacy remain alive, but so does the family’s passion and determination to keep strong and make other people happy with their services.

CASSANDRA XERRY, FROM MOSTA

WE’VE LOST IT ALL Oh, how I loved reading your EditorsNote [April 2018]! Yes, we can play the requiem for the serene, calm-peopled Malta we once knew. Going out for a walk is no treat anymore… Leaving our houses, we enter an environment of traffic, noise, dust and pollution. We've lost all that Malta, this small island of ours, was known for, primarily safe living all around, with no hope of regaining it. It is a sad situation indeed! As usual, Pink made for a very good read, but He Lives On [PrivateEye] made me devour both stories, sometimes with tears threatening to spill. How I admire Pat Micallef for her stamina, both in salvaging her husband's business and making it flourish, but also for raising two such accomplished children. The moral of this touching story is that what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger, and Tasha and Dean have a mother to treasure. I bet Frank is smiling proudly at them from up above! The history of Michael Debono Ltd teaches the same. Where there’s a will, there’s a way, and hats off to Geoffrey Debono, the very young but enterprising man who did find that way. He’s a son to be proud of. In my opinion, all your articles were exceptional, however, another special one for me was The Modern Medieval Woman [WomanKind]. I studied English history at school and loved it.

I vaguely remember Margaret Beaufort’s name, but remembered nothing about her. Reading this article, I couldn’t but help comparing her to Pat Micallef. Both are survivors, and both used their wit to get on. I wish more women do, even in our age and society. Pink, I’m already looking forward to your next issue.

You make a very good companion before siesta time!

JOSETTE CHETCUTI, VIA E-MAIL

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PRIVATEEYE

F

iona and Dave Anastasi’s road to becoming parents began seven-and-a-half years ago, just after they got married. Having tried to conceive for years, their hopes began to plummet. The next step was to explore the option of IVF. Having always wanted to adopt a child after having kids of their own, Fiona and Dave decided to pursue the adoption process simultaneously. They hoped both would have a positive outcome one day and were optimistic.

But with every passing treatment and every passing year, the couple’s optimism turned into heartbreak, especially for Fiona. A shadow of bitterness began creeping over her after she underwent four IVF sessions and had multiple miscarriages.

Both physically and mentally strained, Fiona disengaged with the dream of bearing a child that she had held onto for years, and eventually, gave up hope.

For any woman yearning to become a mother, failing to harbour her own child can be a devastating blow… But the adoption door remained open.

“We have always loved the idea of a multicultural family and know Malta embraces multiculturalism,” Fiona says.

Cambodia was the first option for adoption as many children and infants

To have and to hold ANTOINETTE SINNAS brings out the beauty of giving an orphan a ray of hope, an abundance of love and a sense of belonging. Fiona and Dave Anastasi have just adopted Nina from India and given new life to a child who would have otherwise probably spent her days cooped up in a cot in squalid conditions. In so doing, they have also given new meaning to their own life…

One afternoon, at around 3.30pm, Fiona received “the call” from Agenzija Tama. They had been matched with a young girl in Odisha, and her details, together with her photos and videos, were on their way.

“I think I felt my heart skip a beat,” Fiona recalls. “I messaged Dave straight away to meet up as we wanted to be together when we received the information. For the next two hours, we were on pins and needles, anxiously waiting and constantly refreshing our inbox. It seemed like the longest two hours ever! At last, we finally received the e-mail and saw Nina’s face for the first time. We instantly fell in love with her.

“A SHADOW OF BITTERNESS BEGAN CREEPING OVER HER AFTER SHE UNDERWENT FOUR IVF SESSIONS AND HAD MULTIPLE MISCARRIAGES” have been orphaned in the war-stricken country due to political violence and genocide. But as the couple began the adoption process, their glimmering hope was shattered once again. Cambodia closed all avenues for adoption in Malta.

And Fiona and Dave’s dreams and desires were dropped time and time again.

Then, after almost five years of trying to adopt a child, a ray of light suddenly penetrated their darkness – the channels to adopt a baby from India opened up.

Fiona and her husband lept at the opportunity in a heartbeat, and from then on, life seemed a lot brighter.

16 ∫ Pink May 2018

“It was on March 9 that we embarked on our journey of hope. We flew to Mumbai via Dubai. Upon reaching Mumbai, we had to break the journey and spend the night there. I could not sleep a wink, I was overjoyed! As the clock kept ticking, I knew the moment we would meet our daughter was imminent. There was also a sense of fear that we might hit another hurdle and everything could spiral out of control again.

“In all honesty, in most of the photos we received of Nina, she was never smiling. My constant worry was that she was not happy. In fact, the caregiver at

PRIVATEEYE

Fiona Anastasi embraces motherhood – and baby Nina.

Pink May 2018 ∫ 17

PRIVATEEYE

the orphanage told us that this child does not smile,” Fiona admits.

The couple continued their trek and flew out to Odisha, East India, the next day. It was not their final destination, and they had to buckle up and brace themselves for a five-hour drive to a remote village on rugged terrain with no roads.

up to the door of Nina’s dormitory. She was anxious; she had this strong sense of love and happiness, but at the back of her mind, the hint of disbelief still hung on, not knowing what was going to happen.

“We finally saw Nina! It was love at first sight. I felt a deep connection when I saw her; the moment was surreal –

“I FELT A DEEP CONNECTION WHEN I SAW HER; THE MOMENT WAS SURREAL – LIKE I HAD KNOWN HER FOREVER!” “The schedule was for us to meet Nina the following day. However, during our journey, the orphanage called, informing us that we would be lucky enough to meet Nina if we got there before the children were put to bed.

Dave and I were thrilled!”

They finally reached the orphanage.

This was it – the moment they had long been waiting for. Fiona was filled with a strange mix of emotions as she walked 18 ∫ Pink May 2018

like I had known her forever! I took her into my arms and she gave me a queer look, with her big brown eyes. I don’t think she was too pleased to be in my arms, but I was over the moon. That evening, we spent an hour with her and I cherished every single second of it,” says Fiona.

“Nina’s caregivers were such lovely people. They barely knew English, but made us feel extremely welcome and

so at home. Running an orphanage is no mean feat and what Dave and I witnessed was the genuine care they had for each child, trying to feed and educate them with a great amount of dedication and love.

“Being situated in a very poor rural village, away from the clamour and frenzy of the city, was quite a culture shock for us and also a humbling experience.

“The institute had the bare minimum, consisting of small, poorquality buildings, divided according to the age and gender of the orphans.

Amenities were extremely sparse, and the caregivers had to walk great distances on unlevelled footpaths to buy food and clean water.

“There was no air conditioning to get through the sweltering Indian summers; only a few fans in every room, which barely made a difference in that heat.

Mosquitoes were rampant, and the poor children had no insect repellents to

PRIVATEEYE

Nina’s first steps into a new life and nursery – a far cry from the bare minimum in her orphanage.

“BEING IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY, AS NEW PARENTS OF A CHILD WE HAD JUST MET THREE DAYS AGO, WITHOUT OUR FAMILY AROUND, WAS EXTREMELY CHALLENGING”

protect themselves, except for a net that was strung over their beds every night,” Fiona describes.

“Nina and her roommates were all under the age of five and spent all day in cramped cots with filthy linen and grubby rugs placed on the floor. Each child had one small toy to play with and they also kept themselves entertained with empty medicine boxes.

“As for the older kids, their living conditions were equally squalid. There was no proper sanitation. The orphanage had no running water and the adults and children had to collect

water for their use with pots and pails.

They had what they called a ‘toilet’, detached from their dormitories.

However, I used to see them walk into it and urinate on the floor,” she recalls.

“Despite living in these conditions, however, the children always had milelong smiles on their faces. They have no tablets and PlayStations and were born to thrive without technology. They were always playing in the compound, on a patch of bare earth, shaded by a few trees, making up their own games, jumping on ropes and worn-out tyres, running around, playing tag, or a game

of hide-and-seek. This is the simple life these abandoned children lead.

“We spent about eight hours a day for three days at the orphanage and it was truly an eye-opening experience.

We were really struck quite deeply, and it has made us appreciate the things we take for granted in our everyday lives, like running water, electricity and roads,” Fiona admits.

“We were now officially a family, the Anastasi family, which had grown over the past few days by two little feet. Our adventure began! Our life had a new meaning to it.

“At a year and five months, Nina experienced many firsts, starting with her first car drive out of the orphanage, and maybe it was even the first time she left the compound. She had spent her life so far in her cot and never experienced anything above and beyond that.

“After travelling back to Mumbai, we spent around two weeks there. The experience was quite emotional and life-changing. Being in a foreign country, as new parents of a child we had just met three days ago, without our family around, was extremely challenging.

There was one day Nina did not want Pink May 2018 ∫ 19

PRIVATEEYE

Dave Anastasi and Fiona meet their daughter in the Indian orphanage.

I

“I WOULD LOVE FOR NINA TO EVENTUALLY CONNECT WITH HER ROOTS. INDIA IS A COUNTRY RICH IN CULTURAL HERITAGE AND I WANT HER TO BE PROUD OF HER ORIGIN”

to let go of me all day. She did not nap, or settle down, but was extremely cranky.

Later, we learnt she was teething. That night, I frantically rang my mum in Malta and broke down in tears over the phone because I gave Nina some Calpol for her teething pain and was worried I was doing something very wrong,” the first-time mother admits.

Fiona loves being a new mum. “Nina fills me with great joy, and seeing her transform from a quiet, ‘unsmiling’ little girl into a happy, playful child is the most rewarding gift I could have ever asked for.

“I was apprehensive of how she would settle in, but the transition was ever so 20 ∫ Pink May 2018

quick and she loves her new life.

She leaves us in splits on so many occasions and we call her our little clown when she makes us laugh,” Fiona giggles.

“Adoption has given me a unique perspective on motherhood, teaching me some new truths about parenting.

It has been a huge learning curve for me.

I always wondered what sleepless nights were like and, believe me, I have been getting my fair share of those lately.

Remember the episode in Friends, where Rachel Green says, ‘I need to sleep, eat and take a shower’? I can say that every day now! I am trying to accept it as my new way of life and then I guess it would get easier to handle.

“I need to get into the grind and set a routine. After lulling Nina to sleep, I wish

could take a nap myself, but I can safely disable my snooze button, that’s for sure.

Popeye hand over the can of spinach!

I put on my Cinderella clothes and get cooking, cleaning, washing the floor and tidying up. I, however, always leave some mummy-time for our little pooch, Charlie,” Fiona laughs.

“My husband has been my rock throughout this journey. The first few days after we got Nina were the hardest for him as she only wanted me most of the time.

I felt I was constantly asking him to do things for us and he was always at our beck and call. What I really would have loved to see was her resting peacefully in his arms and playing with him as she was doing with me,” says Fiona.

The couple have given new life to this unfortunate child, who would have been

PRIVATEEYE Mother and abandoned daughter united.

On the way home… where Nina is greeted by a welcome party and meets Charlie, another important family member.

cooped up in a home, never venturing outside its four walls. Nina now has a family and lives in a safe haven created for her by her parents. They have converted a bedroom into a beautiful, whimsical nursery, with a comfortable crib for her to sleep in, books for her to read and toys to play with. They also threw a welcome-home party, fit for a princess.

Fiona and Dave invited their relatives and friends, who showered the little cherub with tons of love and presents.

“I would love for Nina to eventually connect with her roots. India is a country rich in cultural heritage and I want her to be proud of her origin.

We will definitely go back to India when Nina is older and can understand more about her ethnicity.

In the meantime, I plan to put on my chef ’s hat and whip up a good Indian meal. Nina isn’t far behind in becoming my junior chef and our mother-daughter cooking sessions could create wonderful memories that we can cherish forever,” Fiona continues.

Being a ballet teacher, she is also already keeping Nina on her toes and the mum-daughter duo can dance the night away.

Every child needs a family and family does not mean whose blood you carry, but to be surrounded by people who love you and give you a safe upbringing. There are millions of other children like Nina out there who continue hoping for love and affection. Unless adopted, they face a future ever so bleak.

The little tiger “I

And now for the adoptee’s point of view, LARA SIERRA talks to blogger Line Peteri, a Korean girl, adopted into a loving home, who only saw herself as an “old troll of a child”, taken as a last resort. She had thought about meeting her biological parents her entire life and it was the only thing she was ever afraid of. But now that she has been reunited with her mother, she can finally come to terms with why she was rejected.

have a crazy story,” laughs Line Peteri. Her crazy story has become something of a phenomenon around Malta, with her successful blog, international TV documentaries and an upcoming book. Clearly, people can’t get enough of the ‘wannabe Maltese’.

Yet, beyond the painful tales of cancer and adoption is a woman who has risen out of the stories that made her and become a source of inspiration in her own right.

“Yes, I have all the answers now,” she admits frankly, “but it was not always this way. And if my life seems like a fairy tale now, I want people to know what I had to go through to get here.”

So, what was the hardship she had to endure to earn this fairy-

tale ending? “I was born in South Korea. I lived with my Korean mum for three years. Then one day, in December 1980, she took me down to the orphanage and said: ‘I’ll come back later.’ That was the last time I saw her.

“The orphanage wasn’t a hugely hostile place; although we were locked in a wardrobe if we were naughty. I remember we used to stand in a queue and put our clothes in a pile, and the next morning, we would get clean ones. There was a jumper with an orange elephant on it, which everybody loved. I always made sure I got to the front of that queue so that I could wear it.

“Even before the orphanage, I remember clothes; I have a memory of going into a room Pink May 2018 ∫ 21

PRIVATEEYE and picking out a pair of shoes. I have managed to keep those shoes my whole life. It’s probably why I love fashion so much. Now, I’m a shareholder in a shoe company,” she laughs.

It is a sweet story, but one also enriched with resilience. That resilience would stand her in good stead, as only three months later, her world turned upside down once more.

“I was adopted by a Danish couple, who already had a son, and taken back to their home country. They were unable to conceive a second child.

Glen was a tall, blonde, blue-eyed boy, who was good at everything… and then I came along like this troll child into the family.

“For many years, I hated that they were sent just two photos of me, and that’s how I was chosen. What if they didn’t like those pictures? What if they’d wanted a different one? It was also a little unusual because I was so old, and you know, everyone wants the puppies.”

The insecurity in those words is hard to ignore. A beautiful Korean girl adopted into a loving home should be how the postcard was painted, yet this little girl saw herself only as an old troll of a child, taken as a last resort.

“Now, I finally I understand that, for my parents, receiving those two photos was like when I had the first ultrasound of my children. They really wanted me. The problem is that there was a lot of ignorance at that time and I never felt like I fitted in. I always felt like the black sheep of the family.

“I suffered from anorexia between the ages of 14 to 20,” she says, and reveals later, via e-mail, that she attempted suicide aged 13. “As I grew up, the racism became more personal, including comments about my face.

Unfortunately, when you already dislike who you are, you feel it more.

If people walk past you, laughing, then you think they’re laughing at you. I had absolutely no one to guide me; no one who knew what it was like to be an ethnic minority.” Pointing to her coffee table, she adds: “I was given two books about Korea and that’s it.”

Completely open, proud and raw for the world to see, at the same time, there is a side to Line that seems to be hiding in plain sight. “Us extroverts are all shouting: ‘Look at me! Look at me!’

22 ∫ Pink May 2018

Two families become one…

But really, we are just hiding our insecurities.”

Line admits she had a very good upbringing. “My parents, if not emotional, were practical and very protective.” Yet outside, things weren’t so safe.

ugly, fat freak. At one point, I weighed 35 kilos. I was taking a lot of drugs too, and everybody thought I was going to die. But when I really needed my parents, they were always there…

“One day, I’d just had enough of feeling bad… so I started learning

“IF YOU’RE ADOPTED, YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO FEEL GRATEFUL. BUT YOU ALSO LIVE YOUR WHOLE LIFE FEELING REJECTED” “Often, people would assume that I was a Thai prostitute. I cannot tell you the amount of times I’ve had old men touching my leg. At school, I’d walk outside and there would be a bunch of boys wearing pro-racism badges, just screaming at me. Eventually, I came to a point where I would just hit them.

I know it’s terrible. But even now, if someone is racist, I will just confront them every single time.”

As a result of the constant bullying, Line was sent to boarding school, where the anorexia really took hold.

“I went to a child psychologist. But if you’re already different, and you go to a child psychologist, what happens? You feel like a freak. I felt like this weird,

everything I could about computers.

I was one of the few women who knew anything about computers at that time, which is how I got my first job.

My next job was to build a Danish search engine, which was sold for a large sum six months later. I was only 20 years old and, finally, I got some confidence from this.”

Despite this new-found confidence, however, her inner critic would not relent. “I spent a lot of time looking for love, often getting into relationships with the wrong people. Even when there were good people in my life, I would always push them away.

“I never felt comfortable as myself.

My parents tried to raise me as a

PRIVATEEYE

Line Peteri with her long-lost biological mother and her sister Hana Pugh after all these years.

Danish girl. But how could I feel Danish when I was just that yellow person? I always tried to fit in. If you’re adopted, you always have to feel grateful. But you also live your whole life feeling rejected.

Why wasn’t I wanted?

“I thought about meeting my biological parents throughout my entire life. When I was younger, Korea was my safe place. I’d imagine that I was kidnapped by pirates and one day my king would come and take me back.

I would imagine meeting my parents and spitting in anger, or else I would imagine running into their arms, crying. Yet every year, I put off trying to find them. What if my mum had given me up because I was terrible? Or what if she was dead? Finding my parents is the only thing I’ve ever been afraid of,” Line admits.

“When I met my husband, that changed. We had a rocky relationship from the beginning… We had our first child and that changed everything.

My son has narrow eyes and a different nose, but I just think he’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. What I see in myself is terrible, but I love his little nose and his eyes. So, if I can be a part

of something so handsome and so beautiful, I cannot be that terrible, I suppose. Slowly, I became more accepting of myself.

“Unfortunately, I probably already had cancer when I had him, but it was diagnosed much later. I was in isolation for six weeks during each treatment. My teeth were falling out and I couldn’t speak. They discovered that I am resistant to the only effective treatment of thyroid cancer, so now, if they think they have found a tumour, they operate on me instead. It was during this failing treatment that my husband turned to me and said: ‘I think we should find your mother.’”

So finally, after a lifetime of putting it off, they did. A Danish TV company wanted to make a documentary about her search, and as a result, a group of people got involved to help, including a journalist in Korea and her old orphanage. They were hopeful; her Korean name translates into ‘the little tiger’, which is a boy’s name. She is the only female to have that name. Through this evidence and a lot of research, they discovered that her biological mother

had moved from Korea to the US in 1988, but so did 46,000 other Koreans that year.

This overwhelmingly large number was just too much in the middle of such vicious cancer treatment, so Line and her husband decided to stop their search. Feeling defeated, they went out to celebrate their wedding anniversary.

During this meal, Line received a message: “I think I found your mother and your sister.”

Line’s sister had found her very unusual name in an online article and made contact with the writer. Line’s mother and younger sister [from her mother’s second marriage] came to Malta in March 2017 to celebrate her 40th birthday.

“Seeing my mother for the first time was awkward as there was a camera crew filming us and I was so conscious of her feeling uncomfortable. But I think we’ll go to the US this year to see them again,” she says.

“The moment I met her, though, I could forgive everything. I realised that if I could forgive her for the biggest thing in my life, then I would have no more resentment towards anything else. But,” she adds, “other adoptees might not be as lucky as I was”.

So, what had her mother and sister revealed to her that could account for her decades of self-destruction?

“I discovered my father was very violent. My mother has many scars on her body and I have some, too.

Apparently, I used to come between them to try and defend her. I was also told that I watched her being stabbed.

I believe she wanted a whole new start to life, so when she left him, she didn’t take me with her. She burnt all memories of me, except for those my grandmother kept.

“I finally understand it,” she adds.

“I was talking to another adoptee recently, and he said: ‘If you were falling off the edge of a cliff and the only person you could grab onto was your child, would you grab them?’ Of course not! I know I would choose to fall by myself. And that’s how it works. You fall by yourself, as there is nothing you can do for your child.

“I am in a good phase in my life now.

I have the fairy-tale ending. I finally understand.”

Pink May 2018 ∫ 23

INFOCUS

‘Being pro-life is a feminist issue’ As women’s rights activists call for the legalisation of abortion, particularly in cases of rape, LARA SIERRA, herself a rape victim, speaks to a pro-life campaigner, born of rape, about her international campaign to remove the parental rights of rapists. It is out of gratitude that her life was somehow protected that she now wants to protect others.

R

ebecca Kiessling arrives in a sparkly jumper, with her big blonde hair and an American drawl. Best of all is her outlandish, multi-coloured, phone-shaped handbag, which actually works as a phone. But underneath her feminine flamboyance is a soft-spoken woman, with the ability to move mountains with her words.

“I am a pro-life activist and a lawyer,” she explains. “I have been working on a law for 10 years, which [Barack] Obama signed in 2016. It is called the Rape Survivor Child Custody Act – to terminate the parental rights of rapists without requiring a rape conviction.”

Yes, that is correct. Rapists have parental rights to any offspring that are a consequence of their crime. Yet, without a rape conviction, how are they proven guilty?

“I deal with this all over the world,” Rebecca, a guest of Life Network, answers.

“In other circumstances, you do not need to have a conviction to remove the rights of a parent. For child molestation, or child abuse, you need a heightened standard of evidence. In the US, we call it clear and convincing evidence.

“We looked at the law in Malta in 2016 with a team of lawyers and there is a judicial standard that allows for the termination of parental rights, so it would be the same for mothers with children born of rape. It’s the same way I’ve dealt with this in the US and other countries I’ve worked with,” Rebecca explains.

26 ∫ Pink May 2018

“This law was designed to be part of a package for gender violence…

Some legislators question how often these cases actually occur? But that is such an ignorant view. They don’t understand how prevalent rape is.

It is wildly under-reported.”

Statistics worldwide make for depressing reading. In the US, 994 perpetrators out of 1,000 reported cases of rape will walk free, mostly because victims will drop their charges for one reason or another. In the UK, only 15 per cent of cases of sexual abuse are reported to the police. In Malta, around 160 cases of rape were reported in the last decade, but that is not at all an indication of the amount that actually happen.

Unreported rape statistics exist across the whole of Europe: it is estimated that about 67 per cent go unreported, yet this average is woefully inaccurate for each country. It includes, for example, the UK, which had a 173 per cent rise in reported sexual violence between 2008 and 2015.

Not in a hurry to go back to the UK after reading that? Don’t be; high reporting statistics are not necessarily bad news and could be an indication that victims trust their politicians and police enough to know they will be safe and protected when reporting an act of violence against them.

Hopefully, what happened at the end of 2017 will make a dramatic difference to this too. The Harvey Weinstein revelations set off a cascade of revelatory

stories of sexual abuse across the Western world, including the ensuing #metoo campaign and yet more stories involving high-profile figures against males, females and children no less.

Rebecca sighs. “The problem with #metoo is that women whose perpetrators are still at large were unable to speak out. They had to use a pseudonym, or not speak out at all.”

It’s a valid point, and more evidence that women are often too fearful to report a rape. I was one of the luckier ones. I was drugged and raped by someone who lived on the other side

INFOCUS Rebecca Kiessling

“MY BIRTH MOTHER WAS ABDUCTED AT KNIFE POINT BY A SERIAL RAPIST. SHE NEVER KNEW WHO HE WAS. I FOUND OUT A YEAR-AND-A-HALF AGO, DUE TO NEW DNA TECHNOLOGY, AND WE BOTH HOPED THAT HE WOULD EITHER BE IN PRISON, OR DEAD” of the world; who had very few personal details about me. Yet I did not go to the police either. Why not? Because, as many other victims feel, I felt shame, guilt and disgust at myself.

There was clear evidence that I had been attacked; I awoke with blood on my clothes, bruises on my thighs and bite marks on my torso. Yet the mental state that perpetuated over the next few years was one of such self-loathing that I

came to believe the attack was my fault.

This is a symptom of trauma. And in cases of rape, where other symptoms often also include memory loss and low levels of self-esteem, no wonder so few victims go to the police.

Since making my story known, I have had many people coming to me, privately and secretly, confessing crimes committed against them too, and none of them had reported their attacks either.

This is proof, then, that the problem exists in Malta, even if we don’t have the statistics on it. And, in a bitter twist of fate, this reluctance to report an attack is a massive thumbs-up for the attackers. It keeps them walking free and confidently continuing their wicked ways.

Rebecca too has her own experience of rape. “I was conceived in rape and put up for adoption,” she explains. “My birth mother was abducted at knife point by Pink May 2018 ∫ 27

INFOCUS a serial rapist. She never knew who he was.

I found out a year-and-a-half ago, due to new DNA technology, and we both hoped that he would either be in prison, or dead.

But no, he has never been convicted.

“I was frequently sexually assaulted, aged 10, by an adult, and I was also raped by a boyfriend when I was 19. He broke my jaw,” she pauses. “I’ve never spoken about this in Malta.”

Rebecca’s life story is heart-breaking, yes, but inspirational too. “I met my birth mother when I was 19, after deciding to find out who she was. I received nonidentifying information, which had all sorts of information about her. But all it said about my father is that he was Caucasian and of large build. I felt devalued. I felt like I now had to justify my own existence.

I called my case worker and asked her if my birth mother had been raped and she said: ‘I didn’t want to tell you.’

“I felt like my life had become a feather, just floating, and I wanted to feel safe and grounded that she would never have aborted me. But no, when we met, she told me she had sought out two illegal abortions. I felt like I was not supposed to be there; I just happened to be saved. It’s out of gratitude for my life being protected that I want to protect others. I wasn’t lucky, but I was protected. Legality matters.”

Rebecca always wanted to be a lawyer.

“Absolutely! My adopted dad took me to see a film called The Verdict, and straight away, I wanted to be that hero and defend victims. People used to say: ‘Oh you want to be a lawyer… Does that mean you’re a feminist?’ I thought, yes, I believe in women; I want to defend women’s rights.

But then I started to hear that feminists are pro-abortion, and I thought, what does being a feminist have to do with killing babies? It didn’t make sense. One of the great things about women is how loving and nurturing they are. This is what makes us special.”

It is undeniable that abortion is not loving, nor nurturing, but it is important to state the other side of the argument too. The Women’s Rights Foundation, for example, calls abortion a human right, which should be given at least to save a woman’s life, to preserve her physical and mental health, in cases of rape and incest and in the eventuality of fatal foetus impairment.

It has also called for the decriminalisation of abortion so that 28 ∫ Pink May 2018

“I STARTED TO HEAR THAT FEMINISTS ARE PRO-ABORTION, AND I THOUGHT, WHAT DOES BEING A FEMINIST HAVE TO DO WITH KILLING BABIES? IT DIDN’T MAKE SENSE. ONE OF THE GREAT THINGS ABOUT WOMEN IS HOW LOVING AND NURTURING THEY ARE. THIS IS WHAT MAKES US SPECIAL” Maltese women who access abortion in other countries, or through telemedicine, do not face criminal proceedings and risk three years imprisonment especially when accessing local health services for possible post-abortion complications.

It is an interesting point; and a valid one when considering the amount of women taking a quick ‘holiday’ to the UK or Sicily in times of desperation. That figure is unknown, but according to Dr Miriam Sciberras, pro-life activist for Life Network, there were about 90 reported cases of illegal abortions in Malta in 2016.

She, along with the rest of Life Network, are launching a helpline, and meeting groups for women who are in pregnancy crisis. “We believe that anything that threatens human life is an abuse,” she says. Yet their line will also support women who are struggling post-abortion.

Life Line is a 24-hour, fully confidential, pregnancy support network for females in crisis, regarding pregnancy, negative pregnancy results and postabortion healing, including for family and friends.

The support is available via an online chat and telephone service. It aims to provide a warm, non-judgemental and friendly interface to help empower women to make life-affirming choices.

“A big problem is that people are against abortion except in cases of rape,” Rebecca says. “What’s more, a lot of rape victims are seen as bad feminists and bad rape victims when they decide to keep their child. The children are called ‘Satan’s spawn’ and ‘demon child’… Yet many women come to me asking for forgiveness. ‘Would my baby forgive me for aborting it?’ I tell them that in heaven, there are no more tears.”

People tend to use biblical references when seeking moral direction, and yet, Rebecca says, it was her atheist adopted grandmother who is responsible for her pro-life beliefs.

“Being pro-life does not require a biblical base. I am a child of God and I am also a child of a rape victim. I know my worth and it is not that I am a lawyer, and I don’t have to show you my finances.

“I have a wonderful husband and I have five children. When my daughter was six, she wrote a book, which she showed me.

Inside, she had written: ‘Conceived in rape is not bad. Because that’s my mum’.”

You can’t argue with that. And really, it is quite simple. Rape is bad; life is good.

But unfortunately, life is also complicated, challenging, and at times, extraordinarily difficult. Women often get the raw end of the deal. But, really, that just makes them stronger, and more understanding of others…

EYEWITNESS

A DIFFERENT WAY OF DYING VANESSA MACDONALD was deeply disturbed as she watched her partner’s Dutch mother prepare for death and undergo palliative sedation to hasten the moment. In a blow-by-blow account of the intense, emotional and uncomfortable experience, she tries to come to terms with it.

A

s a teenager, I remember an acquaintance trying to impress the girls at a party by telling them that he was a psychic who could see how you would die, merely by clutching your hand with his eyes closed. There were no takers.

There is something inherently unnatural about knowing how you are going to die: would you not spend your life trying to outrun fate by avoiding zebra crossings, or carcinogenic foods – instead of living life to the full?

Perhaps, though, there is something just as unnatural about knowing when you are going to die.

When my partner Maarten told his 89-year-old mother, Conny, that the oncologist had just given her a death sentence, her response took me by surprise: the death sentence, she said, had been given to her by the doctor who delivered her as a baby.

platitudes, grasp at faint signs of improvement, and then go home and diligently check where the black ties and funeral outfits are.

So the journey with Conny was different from day one. Over the course of those six months, we visited the Netherlands every few weeks – and set about preparing for her death. We cleared cupboards of accumulated stationery, sorted out the psychology books she wanted to give to a past colleague and put her expensive jewellery to one side.

As we went through photo albums, Maarten realised it was a golden opportunity to fill in the blanks about the times and places, and we came up with the idea of putting together her life story, with a timeline of the main events, and four or five stories from her past that really captured her indomitable spirit. For me, it was a wonderful way to learn about her past – and Maarten’s – and it turned

“SHE CALLED MANY OF HER FRIENDS AROUND THE WORLD AND TOLD THEM QUITE OPENLY THAT HER DAYS WERE NUMBERED – A CHANCE TO SAY HER GOODBYES, WITHOUT TEARS AND CERTAINLY WITHOUT REGRETS” This reaction to news that she had a mere six months to live said a lot about this extraordinary woman. But it was also the introduction to a typically Dutch approach to death, which made those six months an emotional roller coaster for me.

Here in Malta, we do not willingly talk about death, even when it is clear that there are mere days to go. We spout 30 ∫ Pink May 2018

out to be therapeutic for her too. She spoke about the love of her life, who she had met in her 40s, and through the marvels of Google, we were able to piece together the decades of his life after they reluctantly split up.

She spoke about her happy childhood in the sand dunes at Zoutelande – and lamented that we would not be able to take her there for her 90th birthday as

planned. And slowly, her death began to take shape. I interviewed her for her ‘life story’, and she was thrilled by the idea that we planned to sprinkle her ashes at Zoutelande.

We drew up the list of people to inform of her death – no euphemisms like ‘passing’ – with so many entries in her address book crossed out as she had outlived them. And we talked about what music she wanted to have at the cremation; what colours the flowers should be.

She called many of her friends around the world and told them quite openly that her days were numbered – a chance to say her goodbyes, without tears and certainly without regrets. She was calm, and the only time she got vaguely agitated at all was when she was afraid she would not have the time and energy to sort out her life before the end.

It was organised, unemotional, serene. And yet, would we all have been so pragmatic if we also had to deal with the dying as well as with the death?

Cancer is a cruel killer, and lung cancer, they say, is one of the worst. But Conny was clear in her mind that she would call the end at the time of her choosing.

She had a choice: euthanasia, which you can invoke at your desire, or palliative sedation, which the doctor invokes when certain criteria are met.

They are different not only in terms of legislation and ethics, but also in practice. In the latter case, you are put into a medical coma and all food is withheld at the patient’s request, which makes the doctor’s role passive rather than active.

EYEWITNESS Conny van Hoogstraten’s countdown: collecting memories of her life story.

“THERE WAS NO MORAL JUDGMENT ABOUT ENDING HER LIFE, OR ABOUT THE ROLE OF THE DOCTORS. YET IT SEEMED TO ME TO BE SO COLD-BLOODED, SO PRACTICAL, SO ALIEN TO THE ROMAN CATHOLIC IDEA OF LEAVING IT IN GOD’S HANDS” Conny toyed with the first option and even got all the forms signed by Maarten, but as the weeks went by, she was overwhelmed by the attention from friends and family, who got in touch, sent messages, crossed the country to visit her. Was that why she decided there was no hurry; that she would wait until there were medical grounds on which to say ‘enough’?

For me, the whole issue was deeply disturbing. There was no moral judgment about ending her life, or about the role of the doctors. Yet it seemed to me to be so cold-blooded, so practical, so alien to the Roman Catholic idea of leaving it in God’s hands.

Conny would shrug. After all, do we not do the same when we plan a Caesarian birth? If we could choose our arrival, could we not also choose our departure?

But the thought of it made me supremely uncomfortable. At some basic level, the thought niggled: what was the difference between this and taking a dog to be put down by the vet?

My reaction was, undoubtedly, also self-centred: how to handle getting on a plane for the goodbye, saying your farewells, squeezing the hand, kissing the forehead, stroking the snowy white hair. Did I have the courage to do that?

I would wake up at night, tortured by the idea of it, raging against the idea that we might be wrong about heaven, that she might be cheating herself of one more friend turning up unexpectedly, one more message landing in her letter box, one more biteful of her favourite food.

And there was a sense of guilt permeating those early-morning panic attacks: was she opting for this because she was worried about us; about the

dark shadows under Maarten’s eyes; the extra shifts worked to get more leave at the end of the year to spend with her; the dreary drives through the snow; the delays at the airport?

Over the months, we lived in denial.

She was eating well, sleeping well, walking well… Until she wasn’t. Her deterioration could not have been overnight, but that is how it seemed to us. We would plan a treat for each visit and suddenly realised they were our indulgence; our attempts to squeeze out one more memory before she died.

By January, she seemed to have withered away, her vibrant lifeforce faded.

She applied to move to a hospice nearer to Maarten’s sons and her friends. A room had been vacated and she had just two days in which to pack a few bags into the ambulance that came to collect her. All of a sudden, the work we had done clearing Pink May 2018 ∫ 31

EYEWITNESS

“WE WOULD FLY OVER, SAY OUR GOODBYES AT THE WEEKEND, AND ON MONDAY, SHE WOULD ASK THE DOCTOR TO START THE PROCEDURE. THEN IT WOULD BE JUST A MATTER OF DAYS”

up seemed woefully inadequate, with a flat still full of the accumulated proof of a well-lived, well-travelled life.

The stories from our little interviews filled three pages, and as we scoured boxes of old photos, they prompted even more stories. The pages were finally ready to be printed and sent as her obituary announcement.

Each time we went to see her, we would sort through yet another of the few boxes she had brought to the hospice, and each time she handed over something physical for charity, for a friend, or for us, we could see also her intangible life shrinking, as though she was getting less clear around the edges.

And the day came when she found swallowing too hard, when she could no longer go to the bathroom unaided.

There were no laments, no nostalgia, no anger. Quite the contrary. Concerned that the doctor might not assess her as being ready to be put into a coma, she decided to stop eating.

It was all so clear in her mind, and knowing how it would unfold gave her solace. We would fly over, say our goodbyes at the weekend, and on Monday, she would ask the doctor to start the procedure. Then it would be just a matter of days, the number already 32 ∫ Pink May 2018

reduced considerably by the fact that she had stopped eating before.

We tend to lay so much importance on being there at the actual time of death of our loved ones. We want to be the memory imprinted on their eyes before they close. For Conny, there was not going to be a call in the middle of the night to get there soon, a frantic drive, a tormented reminder of all the things still unsaid.

We sat at the airport nursing a coffee, feeling that we were prepared, that she was prepared, and yet dreading meeting someone we knew who would ask why we were on our way to Holland. What would we say? Random thoughts chased each other: do you start to grieve when you say goodbye, when they administer the coma, when she stops breathing?

Conny was asleep for hours at a time, and as Sunday loomed, the burden of saying goodbye seemed impossible to bear. Maarten and I clung to each other outside her door, the silences long and heavy.

How did the volunteers at the hospice keep on giving so much care?

How did the constant rotation of those six rooms, changing the names outside each door, not wear them out? “When they only have weeks to go, we can make those weeks comfortable, serene,

pleasant…” one of them told me as tears poured down my face in the little kitchenette, steeling myself to smile before I went back to her room.

Soon it was time. Her cremation outfit was ready in the wardrobe, and there were her favourite flowers by her bed. All the papers, toiletries, jewellery had been sorted.

She was not in any pain – the morphine patches enabled her to cope with that – but the lack of food had made her weak.

We talked about her journey to whatever lay beyond; about her favourite memory that she would summon on Monday to carry with her to the other side. In the end, she used every last bit of energy she had to pull herself up in the bed and give us a smile. In the end, she had the chance to make sure that the memory we took away with us would comfort us when she was no longer there.

How many days, or weeks, or months had she given up to die before the pain became unbearable; before she had to go to a hospital where her life would be measured by monitors with their beeps and pale blue light; before she was hardly recognisable; before our hearts broke with helplessness?

Her death was inevitable. All I can say is that the way she died was defiantly her own.

EYEWITNESS THE LAW Article 213 of the Maltese Criminal Code says: “Whosoever shall prevail on any person to commit suicide or shall give him any assistance, shall, if the suicide takes place, be liable, on conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 years.”

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH The Catholic Church strongly believes in the respect of the dignity of human life that everyone has the right to enjoy from conception to natural death.

This belief is the foundation of every civilisation, built on the protection of the rights of every human being, among which is the fundamental right to life. The objective of the law is to provide protection to every human life, in particular when this is disadvantaged and vulnerable, rather than to facilitate and promote its termination.

“Every society that weakens the legal prohibition of intentional killing of a human being would be eroding its moral and social fibre,” Archbishop Charles J. Scicluna and Bishop of Gozo Mario Grech wrote in an open letter to MPs on medically-assisted dying in 2016, where their concerns and ethical and moral considerations were highlighted in view of the discussions that were being held.

When a citizen becomes dependent, weak, or vulnerable due to sickness, disability, or severe suffering, a modern society is expected to respond with solid and sensitive structures that provide solace and encouragement so that no one is marginalised, falls behind, or is considered a burden on others, they said.

“A society shows its merciful countenance … when it does not introduce legal protection for medical assistance with the aim to accelerate the process of death.

On the contrary, we should consolidate the medical service of palliative care and continue to broaden the net of social solidarity… High quality and efficient services in this area of medical expertise offer not only comfort and great support to the patients and their relatives, but they also instil peace of mind in society.”

The patient reserves the legal and moral right to refuse disproportionate medical treatment, that is, treatment that 34 ∫ Pink May 2018

does not offer any hope of benefit, involves exorbitant costs, or inconvenience, and incurs severe pain and suffering. The decision to withhold or withdraw medical treatment because of these reasons, while at the same time maintaining palliative care, is ethically different from a patient’s request to medical assistance to accelerate the process of death, they explained.

While in the first instance, the intention is to refrain from any medical intervention out of respect for the natural process of death, in the second instance, the intention behind the medical intervention is to kill the patient, they continued.

“Nowadays, everyone appreciates the strong sense of autonomy that a person enjoys. Everyone desires to take control of their life in order to fashion it responsibly according to their wishes and plans. This is a big step forward in today’s civilisation.

However, this autonomy does not mean the right to unilaterally decide to end life because of severe suffering, disability, or for other inconvenient reasons…

“The protection of life exceeds the right to liberty. The request of the patient to be given medical assistance that directly causes death, even when death is imminent, is not a question of freedom of choice. The autonomy enjoyed by every human being is not absolute, or unlimited.”

If in this context, the principle of autonomy is understood in the absolute sense, then this impoverishes the medical vocation by reducing it to a mere ‘technical’ function whereby the doctor performs whatever the patient wishes, the bishops said.

They pointed out that a change in the law regarding the protection of human life would be “a change in the culture and mentality of our country in how we would start perceiving our elderly, people with chronic illness, people with disability or other conditions”.

The Church understands the psychological and physical suffering that the patient and relatives would be going through and stands shoulder-to-shoulder with each person undergoing these bitter experiences of suffering. This said, however, “we believe that the value of human life does not depend on sickness, or health. We believe that medical assistance given to the patients for the abrupt termination of life could never be in their best interest”.

THE MEDICAL PROFESSION 90.2 per cent of doctors registered in Malta are against the introduction of euthanasia [2016].

THE PATIENTS Only 11.9 per cent of physicians in Malta had terminally ill patients who asked to be euthanised, compared to between 34 and 71 per cent in mainland Europe [2016].

THE OPTIONS Euthanasia: the physician administers the means of death, usually a lethal drug.

Assisted suicide [often called physician-assisted suicide]: a doctor intentionally provides a person with the knowledge or means or both required to commit suicide, including counselling about lethal doses of drugs, prescribing such lethal doses, or supplying the drugs.

Palliative sedation: relieving distress in a terminally ill person in the last hours, or days, usually by means of a sedative drug.

Although not widely considered a form of euthanasia, as the goal is to control symptoms, rather than to shorten the patient’s life, it is often termed “slow euthanasia” if nutrition and hydration are withheld, because under such circumstances, the intent of hastening death is obvious.

OTHER PARTS OF THE WORLD Voluntary euthanasia was legalised in Colombia [in 1997], the Netherlands [in 2002], Belgium [in 2002], Luxembourg [in 2008], and Canada [in 2016]. Assisted suicide is legal in Canada, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland and parts of the US.

Exclusively distributed by Ta’ Xbiex Perfumery Limited Tel: 21331553

WOMENSWORLD Young was handpicked last year to organise the Commonwealth Businesswomen Awards, which celebrates enterprising women across the Commonwealth and brings them all together, along with influential businesswomen and men, to help propel them forward. So how did she get there?

“Last year, I was organising a very big, private event of 250 guests with a €2.5 million budget. In the run-up, I was approached by someone who asked if they could put me in touch with the Commonwealth Businesswomen [CBW] Network. Of course, I said yes. I made a pitch to the director and his team, I presented my portfolios and I won the event…

“Instead of doing everything from the UK, I decided to bring an element of Malta to the CBW. I brought my florist, with whom I have been working for 17 years, a Maltese marketing agency, Maltese printers, who made the invitations, Maltese champagne suppliers, and Maltese artists, who donated work for the raffle. They were all extremely generous with sponsorship too. I even brought a bag of emergency supplies from Malta in case I couldn’t find tape in an emergency!”

Sarah’s Maltese effect has paid off. The room is filled with people of high profile and high net worth from across the Commonwealth, who admire the artwork and the décor and query the sponsorship logos dotted around the venue. Business cards are swapped, hands are shaken and opportunities are opened.

“I EVEN BROUGHT A BAG OF EMERGENCY SUPPLIES FROM MALTA IN CASE I COULDN’T FIND TAPE IN AN EMERGENCY”

THE BUZZ OF WOMEN IN BUSINESS LARA SIERRA attends a celebration of ground-breaking businesswomen of the Commonwealth… organised by Malta’s own.

T

he May Fair Hotel, London, is brimming with anticipation. A starlit ceiling glimmers over the vast floral displays to the sound of heels clicking, sashaying silk and raucous laughter. But this is no ordinary awards ceremony. The people in the room are a rainbow of diversity; brightly coloured traditional dress mingling with designer suits; languages that sing and languages that whisper, men of 18 nervously swapping business cards with boisterous women in their 70s.

In the midst of this, a petite Maltese entrepreneur with a sharp dark bob and a husky voice is discreetly dancing around the room with a clipboard and a smile, holding the entire event together. Wedding and events planner Sarah

“It was clear from the start that Sarah was just as committed as we were to making sure we had an incredibly special and meaningful celebration,” explains Sunita Mukhi, designer and non-executive director of the Commonwealth Businesswomen Network.

“I am very passionate about this,” Sarah adds. “And we had to work particularly hard for this as there was no budget like events normally have. We had to bring in sponsorship ourselves. The CBW were very easy-going and allowed me to create this event from nothing.

“For me, it’s about getting the basics in place, getting the structure done, getting the set-up done, finding the right suppliers, making sure the client is happy and executing. It was challenging having to raise the funds, but I really wanted to do this.

“Moreover, I am a female entrepreneur and have owned my own business for the last 17 years and have had to overcome huge obstacles. So of course, I support this cause,” she points out.

“When I started, I was a woman and a mother going into business, but I was also going into an industry that no one knew about at the time. Back then, the only knowledge of the subject in Malta was from that film where Jennifer Lopez is a wedding planner and falls in love with the groom. I did not want to be associated with that,” she laughs wryly.

A guy once asked her what she did. His reply to her answer was: “Who the hell needs you? We have the mother of the bride; you must never interfere with the mother of the bride!”

Sarah knew there was a market for this. “When I was studying and working in the UK, I saw lots of event and wedding planning going on, and back in Malta, when my friends were getting married, or organising events, they always asked Pink May 2018 ∫ 39

WOMENSWORLD

Sarah’s Advice for Women Entrepreneurs • Get to know your clients and know what they want.

• Stick to your budget; do not start fantasising about spending money you do not have.

• Deal with your emotions; understand the psychology of what’s going on around you.

• Analyse and be open to change; at the end of every year, we do an analysis of what worked well and what can be improved. A calculated change at the right time and place is very important.

• Love what you’re doing, otherwise you won’t do it wholeheartedly.

“IN THE BEGINNING, SOME SUPPLIERS REFUSED TO TAKE ORDERS FROM A FEMALE. TO THIS DAY, I STILL GET CLIENTS WHO ARE SCEPTICAL ABOUT MY IDEAS BECAUSE I AM A WOMAN, BUT YOU KNOW THE MOTTO: THE CLIENT IS ALWAYS RIGHT. AND THEY USUALLY COME AROUND IN THE END” me to help. So, you know, find what you love doing and get people to pay you to do it! My florist loved the idea and backed me up from the start.

“Back then, there was no social media; we did everything with a landline and a fax machine, and you could only attend one wedding fair a year. I thought this was too little, so I started going to wedding fairs abroad, carrying with me these massive boxes that had to be unscrewed and unpacked.

“The business started very slowly, growing to about 40 weddings a year… Four years into the industry, my first competitor came along, which was very exciting.

“In the beginning, some suppliers refused to take orders from a female. To this day, I still get clients who are sceptical about my ideas because I am a woman, but you know the motto: the client is always right. And they usually come around in the end. Events tend to be harder than weddings in this sense, as you deal with a lot of older CEOs, who are less used to being told what to do by a woman.

“Nevertheless, I would do it all over again in a heartbeat, perhaps with the knowledge that I have now about being more assertive, for example. And I want to pass this onto other women…

“While organising this event, we discovered a lot of women crying out for help internationally. I would like to help women across the Commonwealth learn how to open a little business, and do some fundraising both in Malta and in London.”

As the evening unfolds, the awards begin. The disparities – cultural, racial and economic – between the winners in one room are vast. And yet, here they all are, celebrating women of strength and working hard to bring everyone together for a more inclusive and efficient world. At the heart of it, keeping everything moving along, is one of our own.

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THE COMMONWEALTH BUSINESSWOMEN AWARD WINNERS: WHAT THEY DO AND HOW THEY DID IT… Commonwealth Young Woman Entrepreneur of the Year: Nancy Amunga, director of Dana Communications [Kenya] Dana is a Nairobi-based courier company, started four years ago by a 23 year-old from one of the poorest parts of the city.

“I tried to order something online in Nairobi which arrived a week later. Nairobi is a small place, so I could not understand why it took so long. Shortly after, at a presentation, I overheard a man talking about how he was looking for a courier company as he was being charged a lot of money and it was taking a long time. So, there I was, not knowing anything about what he was talking about, and I said: ‘I can do that!’ I had no degree, as I could only afford to do a diploma, so I knew I had to start my own business. I had saved a bit of money from modelling and selling insurance, so I bought some motorbikes to start up the company. But the company I bought them from went bankrupt and I never even got them. I had a dilemma: if I paid for a lawyer it would cost me too much, so I decided to start again. I got one motorbike and one client to start with, and now, less than four years later, I have 10 people working for me full time and an annual turnover of $30,000. That is 10 families that are fed, so I am happy with that. I am also the National Coordinator of East Africa for the Commonwealth Alliance of Young Entrepreneurs. It’s all just about taking the first steps!”

WOMENSWORLD Salima Ahmed Award for the Most Inspiring Role Model for women in business since the last CHOGM in Malta 2015: Jillian Kowalchuk, founder and CEO of Safe in the City [Canada] Safe and the City is a London-based app which maps the safest routes for women to walk and provides tools for accessing help, or logging harassment.

“I was born in Canada but grew up in Yemen and had to leave as soon as the civil war broke out. I travelled alone a lot as a female, which gave me a lot of insight. The instigator of Safe and the City came as I was walking down an alleyway to meet a friend. A group of men started sexually harassing me. While working at UCL, there was a lot of data about women’s health and safety in London, so I started to make use of it to create an app that can safely map whether a woman is about to walk into a situation.

The app launched on International Women’s Day this year, and since then, we have gone very fast. We have had an amazing reaction from the Metropolitan Police and the Mayor of London’s office. While creating this app and venturing into the tech world, it became very apparent that sexual harassment was also present in the tech world, as a very male-dominated industry. As a result,

I created Fem Tech Talks, a group of women in tech, who started to have these conversations about unconscious bias and feeling uncomfortable in the workplace and so forth. I would love to move the app internationally, into Commonwealth countries, or emerging markets. This product could potentially change a generation of women to feel safe enough to explore their surroundings without fear.”

Commonwealth Cultural Enterprise Award for Women in the Arts [Focus on Music] in collaboration with Commonwealth Resounds: Chi-Chi Nwanoku OBE, founder, artistic and executive director of Chineke!

Foundation [UK and Nigeria] Chineke! Orchestra is the first professional orchestra in Europe to be made of majority black and minority ethnic musicians.

“There is a huge gap and lack of representation of all ethnicities in classical music. This orchestra is about giving opportunities to people who aren’t being represented. We have an adult and a junior orchestra, and the juniors are the pipeline to the future.

Classical music is the last bastion of race in the arts industry…

It says a lot when people have to audition from behind a screen to remove the unconscious racial bias. Various visual images of classical musicians are preventing people from coming forward for auditions. All genres should be represented by all walks of people. We’ve had incredible results since the founding of Chineke!”

WOMANKIND

The pen-driving machine MARY GALEA DEBONO tells the story of popular author Frances Hodgson Burnett, who claimed that even a fly on the ceiling could inspire her with a plot.

S

urveys carried out by reputable institutions to establish which books are most popular with children have consistently shown that The Secret Garden by the author Frances Hodgson Burnett ranks high in the popularity list.

In 2003, the BBC asked the British public to identify which books children

preferred reading and a more recent survey was carried out in 2012 by the School Library Journal, a monthly magazine published in the US; both showed that The Secret Garden, now a classic, is considered to be one of the greatest books written for children.

Films and stage adaptations have been made of this book, which has

been translated into many languages.

It has also been adapted into several TV series, while a musical version appeared on Broadway in 1991. And It seems it is destined to continue to be an inspiration; in January of this year, playwright and screenwriter Jack Thorpe was commissioned to write his adaptation for a new film.

The Secret Garden was first published in 1911 after appearing in serial form in an American magazine a year earlier. During the author’s lifetime, this children’s novel was not as popular as the many other books she had written, but ironically, while many of her other novels have been forgotten, The Secret Garden has withstood the test of time. One can even say that her fame as an author rests entirely on this book.

Frances was born in Manchester in1849. Her father had a prosperous ironmongery and furnishing business, which allowed the family to live a comfortable life. But when she was only three, he died, leaving behind two sons, two daughters and a pregnant widow.

The mother decided to continue running the business and the family moved to a house in Islington Square, a gated area beyond which the poverty “defied description”. The move was a learning experience for Frances; from her nursery window, she could observe these underprivileged children playing.

Besides inspiring her with stories, they provided her with the opportunity to listen to their dialect, which she was later to use to great effect in her novels.

After a few years, Frances’s mother was constrained to sell the business and, accepting her brother’s suggestion to join him in America, in 1865, she took up the offer, emigrating to the New Continent with her five children.

At first, they lived in Knoxville, Tennessee, where the uncle had a small but flourishing business. But the end of the American Civil War brought with it a slump and the Hodgsons had to move to a rural area outside town.

Frances, now a teenager, and her elder sister Edith – with whom she was very close and was to remain so throughout her life – tried their best to earn some money. An avid reader of Pink May 2018 ∫ 45

WOMANKIND magazines, she conceived the idea of writing a short story that she could sell.

Magazines that featured sob stories with romance and rags-to-riches themes flourished in America at this time.

Frances, who boasted that even a fly on the ceiling could inspire her with a plot, knew that all she needed was to be given a chance. Having no money to buy paper and stamps to submit her story, Edith suggested that living close to the woods, they could gather wild grapes to be sold in the market and that is what they did. With the money she earned, she was able to send her story to Ballow’s Magazine. The editor neither accepted nor rejected it; he merely wrote back telling her that it was too long.

Frances, who was to prove to be an astute businesswoman, had sent enough postage stamps to make sure that her story would be returned to her should the editor decide not to publish it. On her second attempt with a different magazine, she added another story, and to her surprise and immense satisfaction, she received $35 for both.

A compulsive storyteller, she knew that she had found her niche, and every month, she churned out six to 10 stories, which she sent to several magazines.

Encouraged by the success of these short stories, Frances embarked on more ambitious work. She started writing long novels, some of which appeared in serialised form in magazines before they were published in books. They were mostly sentimental stories, with improbable plots in which poor but beautiful girls found both love and riches. Her books had very good reviews and sold well both in America and in England – so well, in fact, that most of them went into several editions.

One negative result of the popularity of her stories was that, since copyright laws had not evolved, many found it convenient to adapt them for the stage.

Moreover, adapters took licence with her storyline and, not surprisingly, Frances objected to this piracy of her work.

When she found out that one of her first and most popular books, That Lass o’Lowrie’s, had been dramatised several times, she decided to do her own version for the stage and even involved herself in the production and rehearsals – a very unusual thing to do, especially by a woman, in those days.

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Vivian Burnett dressed as Little Lord Fauntleroy.

“SO GREAT WAS ITS POPULARITY THAT IN AMERICA, MOTHERS NOT ONLY DRESSED THEIR SONS IN LORD FAUNTLEROY SUITS OF BLACK VELVET WITH LACE COLLARS, BUT ALSO INSISTED THAT THEY WORE LONG HAIR IN CURLS. THE CRAZE OVER THIS FICTIONAL CHARACTER WAS SUCH THAT PICTURES OF CEDRIC IN THIS COSTUME APPEARED ON CHOCOLATES, WRITING PAPER, PLAYING CARDS”

Matters over copyright came to a head some years later over her book Little Lord Fauntleroy, which told the story of Cedric, a poor boy whose father and elder brother had both died and who finds out, one day, that he had inherited from a hitherto unknown aristocratic uncle living in England not only money and property but also a title.

Frances had based the character of Cedric “with his curls and his eyes and his friendly kind little soul” on the younger of her two sons, Vivian.

This book was an immense success.

Over one million copies were sold; it was translated into several languages and read by both adults and children. So great was its popularity that in America, mothers not only dressed their sons in Lord Fauntleroy suits of black velvet with lace collars, but also insisted that they wore long hair in curls. The craze over this fictional character was such that pictures of Cedric in this costume appeared on chocolates, writing paper, playing cards and many other articles. Even in real life, Vivian and Cedric became one.

When Frances found out that a certain E. V. Seebohm had put up an unauthorised play based on her book, she was furious, and it was this that made her decide to concentrate all her

efforts to protect her rights. Refusing his offer to share in the profit of his enterprise, she decided to produce her own dramatisation, which turned out to be a great success. But what had a more lasting and effective result was the court case she instituted on the grounds that Seebohm’s play infringed the Copyright Act of 1842.

The court judgement, which was in her favour, was of great importance, and in 1888, The Society of Authors, at a dinner in honour of American writers living in England, presented Frances with a diamond bracelet in recognition of her action in favour of safeguarding the rights of authorship.

But of greater significance was the fact that the judgement led to the British Copyright Law of 1911 and, eventually, to the regulation of international copyright.

Frances described herself as “a pendriving machine”. Her output was indeed remarkable. Apart from scores of short stories, she wrote about 40 novels and adapted several of these for the stage.

It was also a “machine” that made enough money to allow her to live lavishly. Her houses on either side of the Atlantic, where she often entertained the ever-widening social set that she had started to cultivate, reflected her wealth.

Frances travelled widely in Europe with long spells in some of the capitals. In her lifetime, she crossed the Atlantic 33 times, the last time in 1914 before the outbreak of World War I. Her affluence made it possible for her to indulge in what Ann Thwaite, one of her biographers, describes as her role of “fairy godmother” to family members and close friends who needed financial help; Frances was generous by nature.

In spite of her success as a writer, or perhaps because of it, her private life was not entirely without its failures. Back in the days when she had lived on the outskirts of Knoxville, she had made friends with Swan Burnett, the rather unprepossessing, lame son of the local doctor, who, like her, was keen on reading. They became close friends, and after becoming an eye and ear specialist, he proposed. Frances did not accept; instead, with her first earnings from her short stories, she decided to revisit Manchester where she was born.

But, as sometimes happens, absence makes the heart grow fonder. From the other side of the Atlantic, the idea of marrying her childhood friend suddenly became appealing.

The marriage took place in 1873.

Times were, at first, hard; Swan had very few patients and Frances was the breadwinner. After resuming his studies in Paris, where their two sons, Lionel and Vivian, were born, he managed to establish a good practice in Washington DC. Swan never stopped his wife from doing what she wanted to do, but he may have resented her success.

Frances was a devoted mother, but she spent long spells away from home, and when Lionel fell ill, she had to hurry back to him. Although she took him to a sanatorium in Germany, he later died of tuberculosis in Paris while she was in London on business.

Her marriage to Swan had long come to an end when Stephen Townesend, an unsuccessful actor, 10 years her junior, entered her life. She tried to help him by giving him a part in one of her stage productions. They got married in 1900, but she was soon writing to Vivian: “What I struggle with now are these surging waves of awful hate which sweep over me…” Stephen, a highly-strung person, “spiteful and hysterical” and jealous of her success, was, she was to find out, only after her money.

In order to thwart his plans and avoid claims on her property, she sold Maytham Hall, her beautiful residence in Kent, and became an American citizen. She built a new house in Plandone Park, Long Island, and devoted time and energy to the planning of the garden. It was here that she wrote The Secret Garden, though the germ of the idea probably dated back to the secluded rose garden of her house in Kent.

Frances’s life had always been plagued by ill health and depression. One divorce, a remarriage and a separation were not acceptable behaviour in those days and her reputation suffered somewhat.

Her last years coincided with the birth of a new medium – the cinema – in which she showed great interest, especially because some of her novels were turned into films. In fact, her last public appearance before she died in October 1924 was at the premiere of Mary Pickford’s film version of Little Lord Fauntleroy.

Frances is buried in God’s Acre, Roslyn, Long Island.

SHOWSTOPPER

Dress, €335, Karen Millen.

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SHOWSTOPPER

RED IS FOR...

BE A STAR IN STRIPES! Photography Matthew B. Spiteri Styling Marisa Grima [marisagrima.com] Hair Robert Agius Make-up Amanda Greaves Model Rebecca @ Supernova MM Location Luciano Valletta Boutique Accommodation

Jacket, €39.99; T-shirt, €14.99; trousers, €39.99, all Debenhams ∫ sun hat, €55, Emthunzini ∫ trainers, €49.90, Marks & Spencer ∫ Roberto Cavalli sunglasses, €270, O’hea Opticians.

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SHOWSTOPPER

Jacket, €95; T-shirt, €11.50; trousers, €55, all Marks & Spencer.

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SHOWSTOPPER

V-neck, €25.99; T-shirt, €9.99; jeans, €49.99, all Mango ∫ bag, €34; trainers, €49.90, both Marks & Spencer ∫ sun hat, €70, Emthunzini.

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SHOWSTOPPER

Dress, €210, Karen Millen ∫ bag, €49.90, Debenhams.

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SHOWSTOPPER

Top, €125; trousers, €135, both Armani Exchange ∫ necklace, stylist's own.

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SHOWSTOPPER

Jacket, €95; T-shirt, €8.75; skirt, €55; bag, €44, all Marks & Spencer ∫ Celine sunglasses, €260, O’hea Opticians.

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SHOWSTOPPER

Dress, €120, Armani Exchange.

Pink May 2018 ∫ 57

SHOWSTOPPER

Dress, €210, Karen Millen ∫ booties, €89.90, Mango.

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FASHIONSTORY Leather jacket; top, both Twinset Milano | skirt, French Connection

More about Moira Maturity brings serenity and happiness, according to outspoken TV personality, activist and style ambassador Moira Delia. She talks to Pink about the importance of embracing age… and many other pet subjects.

Society’s attitude to women versus that of 30 years ago Definitely a big change for the better! Women have worked so hard to reach where they are today. Intelligent women have managed to change how people look at them. Maybe we are still a minority when it comes to certain high positions, however, I do believe that behind the most powerful man, there is always a woman guiding and supporting him.

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Women who do not fear to speak out I was born unafraid of speaking out. I did not make myself this way; it is who I have always been. I wouldn’t call myself brave, however, I do not fear speaking the truth about issues that matter to me. It’s not always easy, but that is who I am, and I feel strongly about this side of me.

The great Winston Churchill once said: ‘You have enemies?

Good. That means you’ve stood up for something,

FASHIONSTORY Kaftan with removable waist belt, Twinset Milano

sometime in your life.’ This carries particular resonance with me.

Maintaining your health – the importance of physical and mental fitness, and how they complement one another Age matters here. I think that when women accept their age and are fearless about growing old, their mental fitness is far stronger than others who fight it! Things will change with time, no matter what, so why waste time fighting it?

The sooner we are open to accept this change, the happier and more stable we are mentally. Growing older is a beautiful thing, which we should embrace. It’s another exciting chapter in life. Maturity brings serenity and happiness.

“I THINK THAT WHEN WOMEN ACCEPT THEIR AGE AND ARE FEARLESS ABOUT GROWING OLD, THEIR MENTAL FITNESS IS FAR STRONGER THAN OTHERS WHO FIGHT IT!” I also believe physical fitness goes hand in hand with mental fitness. I take my training very seriously and I have a daily routine I stick to – it makes me feel good, strong and healthy.

The advice you would give your 21-year-old self Oh, if only you knew how I was at 21, aside from being fearless and enjoying every moment of life! Need I say more?

Pink May 2018 ∫ 63

FASHIONSTORY Jumpsuit, Twinset Milano

Jumpsuit, Essentiel

Feeling good at 46 I do feel very good at 46 and I’m very comfortable with myself even when I’m not looking my best. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being real. I’m never scared to mention my age, let alone hide it! I would hate it if I felt the need to look and act young – that’s just not me!

Your endless mission to promote animal welfare. Do you ever get tired?

I think animal welfare is my second name and it will remain with me forever. It is deeply embedded in my heart.

I always used my voice and face to better the lives of our furry friends and will do so for as long as I walk this earth.

That’s a promise!

Your personal style I love the way most people manage to look different, and I am fascinated by how clothes help communicate a person’s own message. My sense of style is eclectic and versatile, and I am excited that my favourite international brands are finally available in Malta, thanks to the all-new Mexx Concept Store in Baystreet [ formerly Mexx]. French Connection needs no introduction and has recently been reintroduced to our shores; Essentiel hails from Belgium and offers luxurious, offbeat and refreshing pieces; Twinset Milano, found in all the main high-end shopping 64 ∫ Pink May 2018

FASHIONSTORY

Photography Kurt Paris Styling Mexx Concept Store, Baystreet Make-up Jennifer Dimech Hair Remi Wardrobe French Connection, Trucco, Essentiel, Twinset Milano @ Mexx Concept Store, Baystreet Location Highline Suites, InterContinental Malta Maxi dress, French Connection

districts globally, offers sophisticated daywear and occasion pieces; and last but not least, Trucco fuses simplistic, wearable styles with chic femininity. All these brands are available exclusively at Mexx Concept Store, which was recently re-invented as a multi-brand fashion and lifestyle destination. It carries some amazing designer collections for both men and women, and surprisingly, some quirky pieces for the home too. I have long sought to find freedom of expression through fashion and I have finally managed to do just that through this store. Be it subtle or bold, relaxed or formal, I always like to feel feminine and chic.

rest of the world. My family and friends are of the same opinion, so no trouble at all with that. We know how to fully enjoy the moment together.

Proudest career moments and future aspirations Every Saturday on Animal Diaries is a proud career moment for me. I speak for animal rights and the environment, the two main subjects I feel strongly about. We rehome so many animals thanks to the programme, and also reunite lost animals with their owners. I actively promote environmental matters and am constantly working on the importance of using less or no plastic at all through the #NOSTRAWS campaign.

Social media and anti-social behaviour Now this is something that really matters to me. Why don’t we enjoy the moment anymore? Why do we have to spoil it by grabbing our phone to show people what we are up to on social media? We are definitely missing out on living the moment! I refuse to follow on this one and I must admit I am not one who shares my personal life with the

Spirituality, karma and the afterlife I am more of a spiritual person and, yes, I do believe in karma. I believe the better we live this life, the nicer the life we will have in our next. On that note, I believe we should always try to be kinder, more compassionate, and above all, responsible in our actions.

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PINK@THEPARTY

SUPER YACHT STYLE F

ashion found its berth at the Palumbo SY Superyachts Refit networking cocktail party, where guests had the opportunity to see the impressive dock, while also enjoying the latest spring/summer fashion collection from Gilda.

They were in for a splash of colour, brightness and panache, befitting the world of superyachts and welcoming the warmer season ahead.

These looks, both elegant and playful, were further enriched and embellished by the latest and luxurious Pesavento collection from Victor Azzopardi Jewellers.

Make-up on the Supernova MM models was by Diego dalla Palma and hair by Toni&Guy, featuring the must-have look and trends to sport this summer.

Entertainment at Palumbo SY’s networking event was by DJ Pierre Cordina and a fusion between musician George Curmi, better known as Il-Puse, and singers Amber and Brooke.

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THINKPi Fashion

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1 SHIRT & SWEET Light blue and white striped shirt, with navy blue floral embroidery, a button placket and short sleeves, €19.99, Jennyfer.

2 HELLO STELLA To celebrate the new season and the much-anticipated Malta debut of fashion label stella McCartney, sarto hosted a party in collaboration with Moët & Chandon Rosé. Guests received a glimpse of stella McCartney's spring/summer collection, which has joined the likes of Dolce&Gabbana, Burberry, Dsquared2, Valentino, saint Laurent, Ermenegildo Zegna, alberta Ferretti, Blumarine and others.

The crowd enjoyed an electrifying set by model DJ Tiffany Pisani, who looked resplendent in a floral number by Dolce&Gabbana. stella McCartney’s approach to design emphasises sharp tailoring, natural confidence and a naturally sexy attitude. The brand is committed to ethical values and is constantly exploring innovative ways to become more sustainable, from designing to product manufacturing. The season’s collection is a joyful exploration of British style, with classic tailoring and signature silhouettes.

3 PRESERVING PARADISE soak in the spring in fetching looks from aldo. Red and sandy tones feel as fresh as an april shower, as pretty as a May flower. Braided jute, embroidery and stripes on espadrilles and clutches are sweetly feminine, cheerful and fun. it’s time to get in touch with your blissful side.

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€79

€15

€79

€12

4 LOVE FOR LOAFERS in black and white, with heels or without, the right loafer from aldo is a not-so-secret style weapon that slays every time. From classic to sexy or with a fashion-forward tinge, the real secret is that it’s your particular spin that gives it an edge. #LoaferLife

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€105

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€69

Stivaletti Shoes & More The Plaza, Level 1 – Sliema Pama Shopping Village – Mosta Boulevard Arkadia – Gozo MiMi Zachary Street – Valletta Naxxar Road – San Gwann

BEAUTYPARLOUR

PARTY ALL NIGHT LONG This summer’s make-up creates a sunset-inspired mood in an ultra-modern metallic finish. The inspiration comes from a very self-confident, seductive woman, who’s not afraid to wear outstanding colours, says Gianluca Oddi from Diego dalla Palma.

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hat is the look of the summer ahead?

Give us some insight into the trends and how they differ from last season’s look. For the summer 2018 collection, we

have revisited the concept of ‘earthy colours’, creating a beautiful, sexy, sunset-inspired mood in an ultra-modern, metallic finish. The inspiration comes from a very selfconfident, seductive woman, who’s not afraid to wear outstanding colours and is ready to party all night long!

This is definitely a different profile from last year’s cruise collection muse – a cosmopolitan fashionista, dressed in sophisticated cold gold and blue turquoise shades.

What are the colours? Anything too daring that may not work for everyone? The colours of the 2018 cruise

collection definitely work on everyone. When we design a collection, we always pay maximum attention to every ‘woman kind’, creating colour combinations that match all skin tones, eyes etc… The new metallic colours, including copper, bright red and brown, are absolutely perfect for every woman of every age.

What about innovative ways of applying make-up; new techniques? And are these accessible to everyone in that they don’t need to be trained make-up artists to get it right? In the last few years, we have witnessed a

constant evolution of the beauty industry, which is creating new products that generate new techniques to apply make-up and vice versa.

The ‘rebirth’ of contouring, perhaps, the strobing, or baking etc… are all techniques conceived by the professionals to create innovative perfect makeovers, and both the brands and artists themselves are nowadays spreading the knowledge of these new make-up techniques through social media to tempt consumers and help them learn the secrets to achieve the best results on their own. But this is not enough! Many consumers are comfortable with the new ‘e-learning’, but many others still need the human contact with the artists.

Are there any new products we should be looking out for apart from colours and application techniques? In

general, I could say that the accessories are the key to success for every make-up issue. If every woman had a

proper brush and accessory set and the basic knowledge of how to use them, any make-up colour, or the most ‘intimidating’ product would not be that scary anymore.

What about skincare, with the summer heat about to kick in, the sun and the salt? How can we counter the ill effects of these on our face and how can we apply makeup that works in a climate like Malta’s? The best remedy

is vitamin C! Diego dalla Palma has recently launched a new revolutionary 10 per cent stabilised vitamin C serum and cream, a special 100 per cent effective treatment, protecting the skin against the external aggressions of heat, sun, salt, pollution and free radicals. Vitamin C is, furthermore, the best active ingredient to regulate melanine production, reducing the dark marks and enhancing and evening out the skin tone while sunbathing. The best combination for fantastic, long-lasting and nourishing make-up for summer is vitamin C serum – to be used as a make-up base under the new Geisha Lift foundation. Skin is guaranteed to have full-on energy, be protected and perfectly hydrated.

If we had to be carrying around one single item in our make-up bag this season, what would it be? What is the essential must-have? Lips are always the protago-

nists in summer, so I’d definitely say the new Ink Lip Stain is a must-have. It’s a long-lasting liquid lipstick with vibrant full colour, glossy at the application and turning out super matt and hyper long-lasting after drying!

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PINKPROMO

THE BEAUTY CLUB TV personality TEZARA CAMILLERI says this is your new destination – at Debenhams The Point – for all things of beauty.

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e don’t have that many department stores locally, do we?

So, it’s no wonder that whenever I step into Debenhams at The Point, I feel a little bit as though I’m in a foreign country for the 20 minutes or so that I’m in there.

This time, though, I was in for a bit longer than that as I was given the opportunity to chat with one of their beauty consultants about the skincare, cosmetics and fragrance offering, as well as be treated to a trial of some of their beauty products.

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The beauty offering at Debenhams first started off with the introduction of the fragrance section before branching out and launching skincare and cosmetics too – and branding the whole department as The Beauty Club. I was quite impressed by the variety of fragrances they have available for men and women and they

really try their best to offer the scent the second it is on the market.

The Beauty Club is made up of five main brands [apart from the fragrances of course]. These include Shiseido, Clarins, Clinique, Estee Lauder and Tom Ford. In fact, Debenhams was the first in Malta to introduce the latter. The counter-service

Photography Maria Christina Mifsud – McmifsudPhotography

PINKPROMO

for all the beauty brands at The Beauty Club is also a first in Malta.

Every couple of weeks they promote a different brand by, launching a new fragrance or offering an exclusive gift with purchase. They are not focused on the promotion of one particular brand over another, and they wouldn’t even need to because each brand brings something unique to the table.

I was impressed by my beauty consultant’s extensive knowledge of the products she was showing me and was pleased to learn that they are given proper training and also sent to seminars, which is why I can certainly vouch for the fact that when their customers are given a free consultation – with no appointment needed, by the way – they are in safe hands. The consultants will surely offer the best option for each customer’s needs.

While at the store, I witnessed firsthand a consultant handing a customer a sample to take away rather than pressuring the customer to buy which is proof that they work on a customer over sales basis.

After this afternoon chat, The Beauty Club at Debenhams, The Point, is definitely a store I will be visiting more frequently!

Stay updated with the latest news and promos from The Beauty Club by following the Facebook page, The Beauty Club – Malta, or give the beauty consultants a call on 2247 2082.

Pink May 2018 ∫ 77

THINKPI BEAu, FOOD & EVENS

2 SOCIAL IMPACT AWARDS The Gasan and Inspirasia foundations have launched the third edition of the Social Impact Awards. Providing an opportunity to create serious and positive social change in Malta, these awards have already raised almost €250,000 over the past two years. Anyone with a good social project aimed to create a positive and sustainable impact on society should apply now. Following on the success of the past two years, these awards are providing a platform for change-making ideas and an opportunity to receive financial and nonfinancial support to bring them to fruition. The awards recognise non-profit organisations, social enterprises and individuals who submit innovative, social projects that can have a sustainable positive impact and scalable change for Malta. The closing date for applications is May 11. For more information, send an e-mail to info@siamalta.org

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Here’s your checklist for where you should have been, what you should be doing and how you should do it, all rolled into one.

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3 THAT DELIRIOUS SENSATION Paco Rabanne presents 1 Million and Lady Million Lucky, two fragrances that provide that delirious sensation when the world is suddenly your ally!

1 Million Lucky opens with zesty green plum and masculine woodiness and then jolts your desires with luscious hazelnut. Lady Million Lucky opens with a rose revolution that collapses your boundaries. A burst of raspberry rushes in, with its delectable gourmandise. Voluptuous sandalwood pushes the limits. In euphoric alchemy, an addiction to luck is born. For further details, contact Ta’ Xbiex Perfumery Ltd on 2133 1553.

4 AWARD-WINNING WINE The 2017 vintage of the Victoria Heights Chardonnay, D.O.K. Gozo Superior, won a silver medal at the 25th edition of the prestigious Chardonnay du Monde wine competition governed by the Forum Oenologie held in Burgundy, France. This award-winning wine is skilfully crafted by Delicata from hand-picked grapes from Gozo. It was the only wine from Malta to win this year. For trade enquiries, send an e-mail to sales@delicata.com; www.delicata.com

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5 MEDITERRANEAN FRESHNESS

1 NEW OPENING A|X Armani Exchange celebrated the opening of the Armani Exchange store at The Point, Sliema, with an exclusive event in the 125-square-metre shop, previously under the Armani Jeans label. The store features the new concept for the relaunch of the A|X brand. Raw steel, aged wood, industrial planks and concrete walls create a space that makes a strong material and sensorial impact and evokes the industrial interior of a young and dynamic New York.

The event, attended by Malta’s social, 78 ∫ Pink May 2018

entertainment and fashion scene, marks a fundamental step in the relaunch of A|X, which continues its expansion plan, having been wholly reacquired by the Armani Group in 2014, part of its strategy to reorganise its brand portfolio, announced in July 2017. This repositioning allows the brand to re-establish itself as the ambassador of the new Italian streetwear.

A|X Armani Exchange is also available at Bay Street Shopping Complex, St Julian’s, featuring menswear, womenswear and children’s collections.

Valentino Donna Rosa Verde is constructed around the freshness of the Mediterranean. The sparkling top notes of ginger and bergamot progressively reveal the Turkish rose and the Chinese magnolia, all emphasised by the deep mate tea. It is both fresh and sensual, underlining the contrasting elegance of the Valentino House. Valentino Donna Rosa Verde is composed around a zesty and luminous ginger absolute, a delicate and graceful rose absolute, and a mysterious and aromatic mate tea.

It is exclusively distributed by Ta’ Xbiex Perfumery Ltd. For more information, call on 2133 1553.

6 A BETTER GEL FOR A BETTER SHAVE Every man needs a shave plan. All King of Shaves gels are suitable for sensitive skin. Whichever variant they chose, they can be assured of getting a superbly close and comfortable shave, leaving skin feeling amazingly smooth, supple and hydrated, not dry and tight. Visit Brown's outlets, or call on 2142 2999. www.brownspharmacy.eu

PINKSHRINK

PET LOVE Dott. EDWARD CURMI explores why human beings are so attracted to adopting a domesticated animal and how they can deal with their loss – a prospect that can put people off getting a pet in the first place, but, in his view, really shouldn’t.

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ets mean the world to most owners and have a deep symbolic representation in their life as they end up becoming part of the family, just like a long-term companion, sibling, or even a child.

Sadly, one of the hardships of adopting a pet is the dreaded thought that, one day soon – most pets typically live an average of 13 years – such a special attachment will come to an end.

THE POSITIVE SIDE OF HAVING A PET

People who do not own a pet may often find it hard to understand the impact it may have on the life of its owner.

But pets have extraordinary qualities and below are a few examples: Unconditional love Most pet owners often mention the strong sense of loyalty and companionship that a pet offers them. Their genuine love towards family members is second to none and hard to come by in today’s world.

Ability to read emotions Another quality of domesticated animals is their ability to read human beings’ emotions.

Their ability to mirror the emotions of their master is a reflection of their empathetic skills.

Feel-good factor There is ample research confirming that petting animals is a great stimulant and can trigger feel-good factor chemicals in the brain, allowing us to feel happier. In fact, many people choose to own a pet because

animals can be such good company and a joy to all the family.

Safety and security A pet may often nurture a feeling of protection and safety in us. Through their strong attachment, commitment and attention, they are able to transmit a sense of security in a home.

Helping to teach children human virtues Domesticated animals indirectly teach us essential virtues such as the importance of kindness, patience, healthy attachment, a sense of responsibility, apart from playfulness and forgiveness. These priceless lessons may help us raise our children to be more sensible and sensitive.

Structure Owning a pet often involves a number of daily chores, which become part of our routine. Walking, feeding, cleaning and grooming are a commitment, but unconsciously, they help us create those daily rituals that are mindful and may support us to slow down throughout our hectic lives.

HOW TO HANDLE THE DEATH OF A PET

There is no right way to grieve a pet – each and every one of us grieves differently.

Numerous factors may affect how we grieve and these are based on the age of the pet, the bond between the pet and its owner and how it passed away.

A study conducted in 2002 in the Journal of Society and Animals confirmed that the loss of a pet may be as painful as the loss of a human.

Consider the below when dealing with the loss of an animal: It’s OK to cry Crying is a healthy part of the bereaving process. When we cry, our body releases tension that has accumulated as a result of the traumatic experience, allowing us to decompress our stress. To experience such pain means that the connection we shared with our pet was genuine.

It’s OK to feel devastated Bereaving your pet friend will bring about a number of mixed negative feelings, which may range from guilt [not having done enough] to sadness, loneliness and especially anger. These are all common feelings and we need to give ourselves time to digest and accept the loss.

It’s OK to talk to your children about death Losing a pet may be a good

opportunity for a parent to talk to their child about life and death issues.

Hopefully, it will be their first experience of bereavement and, together with their family, they can appreciate more the value of life and learn something about the importance of letting go.

It’s OK to repeat rituals It is common for pet owners to find themselves repeating rituals even after the death of their beloved animal. Denial kicks in as a result of a number of habits that were developed over the years around a pet. Hearing their footsteps, or imagining them waiting for you behind your door are normal occurrences and not signs of losing touch with reality.

SOME RITUALS TO HELP ALLEVIATE THE PAIN

• Create a little shrine for your pet.

• Create a ritual as a family to respect the passing of your beloved pet.

• Make a list of some of the best memories you shared together.

• Respect the fact that not everyone will understand the relevance of your loss.

• Give yourself time to bereave and do not try to replace the void straight away with another pet.

• Validate all the good times that you may have offered your pet.

• Take some time to see what life lessons you can learn from your pet friends.

Dott. Edward Curmi is a registered clinical psychologist, psychotherapist and author of the book Common Sense: a Better Understanding of Emotional Well-being, and its sequel More Common Sense: a Better Understanding of Emotional Well-being, available from Agenda Bookshops.

Pink May 2018 ∫ 83

GIRLTALK THE vIrIIa MONOLOGUES

MODERN [BAD] MANNERS

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y and large, mine is a world where people are frequently given a second chance and the benefit of the doubt. That said, there are times when even I won’t cut anyone any slack. Yes, there are certain transgressions I refuse to make allowances for.

This is probably something I have written about before, perhaps more than once. And yet, here I am again, talking about RSVPs because bad manners really get on my nerves. Where I come from, there are two, possibly even three, stages to replying to invitations.

There is the initial reply, where you actually acknowledge that you have received the invitation and thank the invitee for sending it. This is usually accompanied by a little note, letting the person know whether or not you will be making it on the day.

If you have replied immediately to regret that you will not be making it, then you’re off the hook and out of the game. There are no more stages for you and the rest of the article doesn’t apply.

But if you haven’t ruled out the possibility and have left the window open, having confirmed, or even semiconfirmed, then you’re still going to have to sing for your supper.

I am perfectly aware that some people can’t commit to anything – not

even a four-hour dinner party. So even I can appreciate a reply that keeps all options open and gives you a chance to bail out at the eleventh hour should something better come along. So: ‘Thanks, hope to make it, will let you know closer to the date’ is acceptable enough, even for me. After all, you never really know what could happen, in sickness, or in health. There is an element of contingency to every RSVP. And yes, I can even live with people who don’t reply immediately, but take their time and answer a few days before the event. Not everyone is programmed in the same way.

and who, on top of this, don’t offer any apology or explanation afterwards.

Rarely, there are also those who don’t acknowledge invitations at all, but who turn up on the day, wearing a smile and bearing gifts. That is somewhat forgivable because you can always put it down to them having their priorities in order – they may have forgotten to acknowledge, but at least, they did not forget the party… which brings me to the second stage.

Once you have thanked and acknowledged the invitation, if you have left your options open, then you should really confirm again closer to the date, to make life easier for your host.

“I have absolutely no patIence for the sIlent types, who remaIn stubbornly mute and refuse to acknowledge, who then do not turn up and who, on top of thIs, don’t offer any apology or explanatIon afterwards” But ignoring an invitation altogether is just plain rude. RSVP is not an option, or some fancy way of signing off an invitation – it is a request for the person invited to actually let the person inviting know whether or not they will be turning up to the event. I have absolutely no patience for the silent types, who remain stubbornly mute and refuse to acknowledge, who then do not turn up

What people don’t realise – or perhaps they do but simply don’t care – is that when people throw a party, they go through a lot of trouble preparing food and making sure there is enough of it [and enough booze] to go round. When it comes to a dinner, it’s not only rude, but very inconsiderate.

I confess to having an aversion to ‘reminding’ people after I have sent Pink May 2018 ∫ 85

GIRLTALK out an invitation. Once is quite enough – if people ignore my initial invitation, then I usually ignore them right back. But, as I have learned, some people expect you to send out reminders, which to my mind is a no-no. In fact, it’s not the first time I have received a plaintive message, checking if ‘the party is still on tonight’. Really, how many times do you need to extend an invitation? Don’t people realise that you have enough to do without having to remember to chase them and send reminders?

This happened to me a couple of years ago. I sent out an SMS asking some people over for supper, urging them ‘to please keep the date free for curry’.

Everyone thanked me and confirmed. Closer to the date, I did not think to ever mention it again. Sure enough, four people [two couples] didn’t show up.

One was man enough to admit he had totally forgotten. The other blamed me for not having sent out a reminder! Well, I never!

I am not very big on online invitations for the simple reason that even I sometimes overlook them.

I miss the days when you would receive an elegantly engraved card in the post, which you’d promptly hang to your hall mirror. Online invitations seem so much more fluid and unreal somehow, but they aren’t. People still go through a lot of trouble, I can assure you.

Of course, the good thing about online invitations is that if people don’t respond, you can simply delete them from the guest list. Even if they don’t notice, it’s quite a liberating feeling. Also, online invitations take care of reminders, which makes life a little easier for those who need flashcards to remember anything.

Stage three is the post-party, day-after stage. It’s simply to thank your host for a lovely time [even if you didn’t particularly enjoy it], or else to offer regret that you didn’t make it, despite having said that you would.

There are people who actually confirm, let you know they are coming and then don’t show up on the night. This would be perfectly acceptable if only they had the decency to text you the day after, letting you know how sorry they are that they didn’t make it. Even a lie would do. But to say absolutely nothing at all is just beyond belief. A short SMS goes such a long way.

People don’t realise that it is always better to do right by people.

Age has made me realise that I don’t have time for people who don’t have time for me. I made a plan to meet someone for coffee a few weeks ago. The date and time were set and carved on WhatsApp. On the day in question, an hour before, I texted and asked where we were meeting and received a reply that clearly showed this person had forgotten about our meeting. Fair enough. But at least have the decency to call and offer a genuine apology and try to make amends. Some people really are rude. ginantonic@live.com

Oltre Level 1, Plaza Shopping Centre, Sliema MiMi Pama Shopping Village, Mosta

SNAPSHOT

MEETING HER MATCH Few would know that the person behind the organisation of, for example, the high-profile Malta-England football match was a woman. Match manager Tanya Gravina tells Daiva Repečkaite time management is the trick of the trade.

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hen life gives you lemons, use them for football practice – this is how Tanya Gravina seems to deal with ups and downs along her path. When an injury brought an end to her career as a player, she found an opportunity to join sports administration.

A full-time job at a bank and her role as a match manager at the Malta Football Association [MFA], as well as international UEFA delegate, are all important pieces of the puzzle of her life.

The thread that connects them is her lifelong passion for sport, and the former athlete’s eyes light up when she speaks about every hard-won victory in playing, organising and promoting sports.

Tanya held various managerial roles at Bank of Valletta for two decades, played tennis and football, and worked at the match operations department of the

MFA before the years between 2009 to 2011 brought a boom of career opportunities: in 2009, she became a UEFA delegate, which means overseeing the organisation of international matches

bank – a role that entails giving awards to athletes in BoV-sponsored competitions.

Through these years of dedication, hard work, trauma and recovery, she says she has no regrets…

“AT ONE POINT, I WAS EVEN CONSIDERING THE POSSIBILITY OF TAKING A SLEEPING BAG AND SLEEPING AT THE OFFICE BECAUSE THE DAYS WERE SO LONG AND SO LATE. THE LAST THING YOU’D WANT IS A 30-MINUTE DRIVE BACK HOME, KNOWING THAT AFTER FOUR TO FIVE HOURS, YOU HAVE TO BE BACK” from the federation’s perspective; and in 2010, she became a match manager at the MFA, which means she coordinates everything from sticking to UEFA/FIFA rules to dealing with international TV companies and making sure the stadium and staff are up to scratch.

It’s quite a tall order, but it does not stop there. In 2011, Tanya became the marketing integration manager at the

What does your typical week look like? I have my full-time employment,

working in the PR and marketing department of BoV, which, in itself, is a very taxing job. I tend to be very busy with events there. MFA comes and goes in phases. I love it when we have big matches, although the working day then becomes something like 20 hours.

At one point, I was even considering Pink May 2018 ∫ 89

SNAPSHOT

the possibility of taking a sleeping bag and sleeping at the office because the days were so long and so late. The last thing you’d want is a 30-minute drive home, knowing that after four to five hours, you have to be back. I’m quite disciplined in time management, and when you’re involved in so many things, that is very important.

What keeps you going? Passion. I’m

passionate about football; I’m still passionate about my work in this field.

Sometimes, I don’t even look at it as a job.

How do you feel about being a sports professional in Malta? Is the country too small to spread your wings? The

size of the country takes its toll, but we definitely cannot limit ourselves and continue harping on this. It is up to us, individuals and sports administrators, and the sky is the limit of what we can do. As regards administration, organisation of matches and events, we have proved ourselves; we have shown that we can rise up to the occasion and do what big countries do.

Could you give some examples of proud moments? As much as they are

challenging, we organise big matches like the Malta-England game last September. As Maltese… we refer to it as ‘monstrous’. I remember watching the draws at home and realising that we’d have to organise Malta-England at home in Ta’ Qali! If you take a match manager in Italy, Germany, or France, they’re organising big matches every week. Even their set-up is so huge; they 90 ∫ Pink May 2018

have all the resources. That’s why we tend to find it a bit more challenging here. But as Maltese, we try to make up for what others refer to as limitations with our dedication and passion. I also have a very good team…

When a big match is over, what do you do to relax? First of all, it’s a huge

anticlimax. The next day, everything is so calm and quiet. What’s next? To relax, I love trekking and I have a wonderful group of trekking friends. I dare say I found my second family there.

What is it like to work in a predominantly male-dominated profession, which can be prone to exclude? I wouldn’t say so. I’ve been

involved in sports for decades now.

When I started with tennis in my early 20s, I was sitting at boardroom tables with older men. I thought: what am I doing here? I’m the only female around this table! It was pretty much the same when I moved on to the Malta Olympic Committee. People ask me this question, but I haven’t found it difficult.

Yes, if there is a world that has been ‘masculinised’, it’s the football world, especially when you deal with men’s matches. Sometimes, you have to be assertive; sometimes, you have to show discipline. It’s not about being bossing, but about expressing yourself with a certain authority.

with sports injuries and my playing career ended very abruptly. I was recovering from surgery in the clinic of the association. Help was needed to solve some issues on one of the computers at the technical centre.

It started off from there, helping unofficially. Then I was approached with a part-time job offer, firstly in women’s football. Nowadays, I’m not involved in that at all.

On the subject of women’s football, it wasn’t even financed for a long time… I remember, when we used to

play, we had to pay for floodlights; we had to pay to use the grounds. The slot for our training sessions was the last after the youth and the men’s teams.

Nowadays, I’m informed, it’s not as challenging.

How is the attitude towards women’s semi-professional sports? It’s the same

in the male sector. It’s a nationwide issue, unfortunately. A lot of athletes have to do their day’s work, and then, if they’re lucky, they can go home, have a shower, have something to eat and go to training.

If not, they go straight to training. It’s not only in the female sector. Over the past few years, we have seen a gradual surge in clubs that try to switch to semiprofessionalism in the male sector, but it’s not always the case.

How come you picked up football as an adult? It’s very interesting how

What message would you send to children who are interested in following your path? You can

I ventured into the administration of football. I started as a patient.

Unfortunately, I have been very unlucky

overcome all challenges with perseverance, passion – and time management, obviously.