As a young child, my parents involved me in Church life and pushed me to be an alter boy and as I grew older I started to see and appreciate how much people enjoyed themselves during festa week. So, as soon as I was old enough I joined the local youth’s group that helped in putting up the decorations for the Church’s different festas, be it Christmas, Good Friday, Easter or other feasts that are celebrated in my home town, Mosta.
Eventually I also started organising different activities to fundraise money to help with the purchasing of more decorations, statues, maintenance and operations. I feel so satisfied and proud to see that thanks to these fundraising efforts, every year the feast gets bigger and better. It is truly my passion and being part of it gives me the energy and motivation to do better. Even though I’ve been involved in the fundraising aspect of the fest for seven years now, I’m still amazed by what people can achieve when they put their minds together for one good cause.
Sadly, my father passed away when I was quite young and I almost automatically took on his role at home. I helped around the house, did any maintenance that was required and never had an issue with getting my hands dirty. So, I guess this voluntary group fit the bill. Not only was I doing what I was good at, I got to enjoy it during festa week and made some really good friends along the way.
I was 18 when I first joined Melita and at the time I was still studying on a part-time basis. My first role was that of a technical contact center agent, then after 2.5years I moved to the Technology Department as a Product Development & QA Specialist.
Since then I completed my studies and kept advancing within the company. A few years ago, I joined the Technology Section, and went from being an IT Billing Specialist, to a Senior Service Development Specialist and now to my current position of IT Manager – Billing Services.
In my current role I am responsible for one of the most important systems at Melita. It’s called the CRM/BSS system which is used by almost all the employees daily, from the retail and sales departments, to customer care and business users. This system is also used to provide services to the end customer, in the form of customer billing, rating and invoicing.
As you can imagine my job is very taxing and time consuming; add to that my lovely wife and beautiful kids and I end up with just a few hours a month that I can dedicate to the festa’s fundraising activities. But then, after a whole year juggling my wonderful life, I make sure to save all my leave days for the end of July and beginning of August in order to enjoy the fruit of all the preparations during the village feast.
