Centru Pastorali Sghajtar

Pre-Navitas and History of Navitas

The story of a youth centre in Sghajtar, Naxxar, Malta began in April 2005. Rev. Frans Abdilla had started organizing a mass for youths every Saturday night. This led to the formation of a group of youths aged 12 to 16 who used to meet for a weekly meeting every Friday night. The number of members quickly flourished. Yet lack of discipline was leading to unforeseen circumstances. Hence it decided that a committee had to be elected.

In November 2005 Christian Curmi was elected as the chairperson of the youth centre. Other committee members included Isaac Delmar who was responsible for religious activities, who was responsible for the running of the premises, Karl Sultana (financial controller), Brendon Vella (social activities) and Ann Farrugia (secretary). Due to lack of funds one started encountering problems due to lack of resources. It was thus decided that sweets were to be sold every week, the profit of which could then be used to fund the activities.

In November 2006 another election was held and Olen Terribile was elected as chair person (18+ group) while Dylan Bezzina was elected as chair person of the (14+ group). Subcommittees were elected as well, yet, this time round this system of leadership did not work.

It was in March 2007 that the group was introduced to Clive Bonnici, the new youth worker. First of all Clive wanted to give the group a name. The group was called Navitas and our motto is “energy get up and go”. We want to use our energy in a good way. We want to use it to help ourselves and other people. If the energy in the world is used in a good way, the world would be much better. Clive came up with the idea to form a service team composed of members of the group. He chose Olen Terribile, Dylan Bezzina, Christian Curmi, Isaac Delmar, Patrick Bezzina and Matthew Briffa to make up this group. After some time Patrick Bezzina and Isaac Delmar resigned for personal reasons while Matthew Briffa was given another task to do. Clive then chose Christian Curmi and Kimberly Terribile to join the service team as well.

Currently Navitas is composed of 72 members which are divided into 2 groups; one for youths aged 14 to 17 and a smaller group for those aged 18 to 23. The groups meet every Friday at 7:30 p.m. for a weekly youth meeting. Then on Saturdays we organize different social activities. Navitas has a lot of adventurous activities planned for the future including the Lourdes Project (helping local people with special needs for 2 weeks during their visit in Lourdes) and a youth exchange next summer in a European country. For summer 2009 we plan to go in a third world country to help poor people. Although some of them look very difficult I am sure that with the help of God every activity will be successful.

Navitas strongly believes that youth development cannot be obtained solely through academic formation. Christian formation and personal skills are often forgotten due to an emphasis on the schooling curriculum. Our aim is to create an environment where Youths can enjoy themselves rooted in religion, thus reflecting healthy social values. For Navitas social development is as important as spiritual development and there could not be social development without religious development.