WATCH: Malta’s Revered Missionary Priest’s Work Will Not Be Forgotten
Beloved Gozitan missionary priest Dun Ġorġ Grima may have died but the Ġesu Fil-Proxxmu Catholic movement he founded lives on.
And Nicky Gouder, a 33-year-old partner of a financial services company, is determined to carry off where Dun Ġorg had left off. Indeed, he has now started raising funds for the construction of a kindergarten in Dupha, Ethiopia, one of 230 schools in Africa and South America Ġesu Fil-Proxxmu built and manages.
“Apart from receiving education, children who attend the school will also be given a meal a day – most of them do not have this ‘luxury’,” Gouder said. “As some of you might have heard, this week Dun Ġorg Grima has passed away and it is now more important than ever to ensure that his projects keep going since so many children in Ethiopia and Kenya depend on his organisation.”
Nicky Gouder plans to raise €27,000 to build a kindergarten in Ethiopia
He has so far managed to raise €3,000 out of the €27,000 needed to build the school, which will cater for between 150 to 200 children, and which is set to open in January.
In an interview back in July, Gouder said it was Dun Ġorg Grima himself who had encouraged him to raise funds for this particular project.
“When you go to Africa you realise who Dun Ġorg is and how important he is, to the people we meet he is literally a saint,” Gouder said. “I was amazed at how important he is to these people. The first time I went to Kenya, I didn’t know what to expect, and the first thing that struck me in this village in the middle of the nowhere was the happiness of these people despite them having nothing.”
Dun Ġorg Grima founded the Ġesu Fil-Proxxmu Movement in 1987
“The feeling of giving clothes to people who have nothing is the most amazing feeling in the world, the feeling you get when you give clothes to a three-year-old boy who has been wearing torn clothes his entire life is out of this world, but at the same time you also feel sad and guilty because nothing makes sense anymore.”
“We complain about being stuck in traffic, about our food not being warm enough or shops not having our favourite clothes, but these people don’t even have food or clothes.”
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