Verslag werkweek A5 – Malta (deel 3)
26 maart 2025
March 24, 2025
Today we took the ferry to Malta’s sister island, Gozo.
Our first stop was the Savina Artisan Centre, at The Magro Food Village in Xewkija. We enjoyed an inspiring presentation about the Magro brothers and the vision for their products. The company has been run by the Magro family for four generations, and its key concepts are integrity, reliability, quality and good taste. The company savours the strong link with the Gozo community, especially with those farmers that provide them with produce, such as goat’s milk for their haninis and tomatoes for their tomato pastes and other related tomato-based products. Their concept showed us that innovation can be rooted in tradition. We were amazed by the fact that a local company could have such global impact, distributing its iconic products far beyond the local market.
Afterwards we enjoyed the local specialty, the Gozitan ftira, on the lovely red sandy beach of Ramla Bay. Students had time to take a swim, collect pebbles or just enjoy the sun.
Our final stop was Gozo’s capital city Victoria, where the students visited the majestic Citadella, a glorious fort towering over the island’s villages and hills.
On arrival at Rivotorto, the students were once again welcomed by the smell of home-cooking.
March 25, 2025
Today we were welcomed on the 18th floor of the Portomaso BusinessTower in St Julian’s. This floor accommodates XNT LTD, a financial and technological company that aims to democratise access to global financial instruments for professional traders and institutional investors.
Our students were introduced to the versatility of the financial sector and had the opportunity to speak to many different employees. Again it was brought home to students that although school and college/ university will provide a good foundation, it is the choices made along the way that determine where you go. XNT LTD employs many employees from outside Malta. They talked about their journeys on the international labour market as graduates, and showed our students that indeed the world is your oyster: you can do anything you wish or go anywhere you want in your life because you have the ability to do so.
After yet another lovely lunch the students visited a wide range of museums, cultural sites, botanical gardens and local craftsmen in Valetta to link the research done so far to Malta’s reality. This allowed the students to do more fieldwork and turned out to complement their findings really well. After another wonderful Mediterranean dinner, the students resorted to their rooms to prepare for tomorrow’s presentations at The Chamber of Commerce in Valetta.
March 26, 2025
On the last day of our Erasmus+ study trip, our students presented the results of their final research to staff and officials of Stage Malta at the Chamber of Commerce in Valetta. In order to prepare for this moment, the students have researched a wide range of topics, ranging from Maltese flora and fauna to commercial enterprise and water management in Malta.
For the final presentations, the students have linked their literature survey to the field research done on the islands. They have come up with interesting observations within the context of the various learning goals they had set for themselves. They were unanimous: this trip to Malta has allowed them to grow in many different ways. Over the past 11 days, Miss Martha has witnessed their journeys. She was impressed both with the general fluency of the students and the quality of the presentations. The students have received their Stage Malta certificates, the crown on many months of hard work. After more savoury Maltese delicacies and a big piece of Maltese Trifle, we roamed the city of Valetta once more. Only one more dinner at Rivotorto, served by our lovely Maltese cooks, and then this will be an experience that we will cherish for a long time.
