Following the online Annual General Meeting held on the 6th of April, the new Executive Board for SĦS has been elected.
The fresh faces of the team are as follows:
- President – Tonio Galea
- Vice-President – Nicole Vella
- Secretary General – Ilona Caruana
- Public Relations Officer – Claudia Grama
- Social Policy Officer – Nicole Schembri
- Student Representative – Mario Zammit
- Financial Officer – Maria Spiteri
The Third Eye got in touch with newly elected President, Tonio Galea, and former President, Gabriel Sciberras, to get their comments on the new and previous term.
I am honoured to have been entrusted with this position within SĦS and am looking forward to representing the Department of Social Policy and Social Work students during the 2021/2022 term. During this term, as a team, we will strive to increase awareness of our organization, including the Social Work, Social Policy professions, and to build further on the excellent work of the previous executive, which we are all grateful for the sterling work during the 2020/2021 term, amidst a global pandemic.
Tonio Galea, current SĦS president
Sciberras looked back on his experience and the hurdles the team faced due to the pandemic.
This last year was a big change for all university students and a huge one for all organisations. I remember the first thing I said in last years AGM was “WE NEED TO FOCUS ON MAKING OURSELVES PRESENT FOR OUR STUDENTS”. A week later, the university closed due to the pandemic, so that plan went rather astray. A lot of events we had planned out had to be cancelled and rethought.
Aside from the cancellation of events, the lack of team-building and engagement is something that many organisations faced. Sciberras talks about this from his perspective;
Connecting with the new team was another struggle as we never had the opportunity to meet all as one team. Although all this came to be, we were adamant not to let the organisation go astray so we kept on working to be present for our students, we opened a Facebook group solely for students in our department and kept it active as much as possible as to not let them think that we forgot about them. Even if online, our one and only concern was making ourselves available for absolutely anything our students needed.
And even though SĦS makes part of a smaller department, this never discourages the team but only makes them strive harder.
Our department is a small one, and therefore, the need for a sense of belonging and a sense of community is a priority for us. It turns out that whatever we did, worked out great. Our students, especially the first years always found us when they needed us, and now are leading the executive team into the new age of SĦS. I’m sure they will work wonders with this team and with this community.
The Third Eye wishes all the best to the new Executive Board and applauds the previous team for all their hard work!