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A C Tivity R E P O R T 2010

A C Tivity R E P O R T 2010

ACTIVITY REPORT 2010 Contents

4 Message from 14 Spirituality 24 the in action Focus 26

Lebanon I n every clinic, every day, Christians and Muslims wait, shoulder to shoulder 50

Activities in Europe 68

Africa On the continent of Africa the Order works in 38 countries 72

Middle East Care continues apace Worldwide medical, 46 health and social 78 welfare activities Government

Message from the Grand Master ...... 4 Africa ...... 32 Government ...... 78 • Kenya ...... 32 The government of the Order ...... 80 Message from the Grand Chancellor • Congo ...... 34 and the Grand Hospitaller ...... 5 • Cameroon ...... 36 Conferences ...... 82

Momentous events Asia ...... 38 Visits of Grand Master Fra’ for the Order 2008-2009 ...... 6 • Burma/Myanmar ...... 38 ...... 84

The passing of Grand Master Europe ...... 42 Official Visits of Grand Master Fra’ Fra’ Andrew Bertie ...... 8 • Lampedusa ...... 42 ...... 86 • Belgium ...... 44 Grand Master Fra’ Matthew Festing ....10 Diplomacy ...... 90 Worldwide medical, health and social Cardinal ...... 12 welfare activities ...... 46 Cooperation Agreements ...... 92

Archbishop Paolo Sardi ...... 13 Order’s Projects are underway Postal Agreements ...... 95 in 120 countries ...... 48 Spirituality in action ...... 14 Flag and Emblems ...... 96 Europe ...... 50 A thousand years of faith ...... 16 The Grand Magistry Library and Americas ...... 61 Archives ...... 98 Pilgrimage ...... 17 Africa ...... 68 960 years of history ...... 100 ...... 18 Middle East ...... 72 Addresses ...... 102 Focus ...... 24 Asia - Pacific ...... 73 Middle East ...... 26 • ...... 26 ...... 76 Message from the Grand Master

As his successor, I am resolved to continue along the same path, and to strengthen vocations to a dedicated religious life within the Order, whilst applauding and encouraging our charitable works around the globe. Over recent months we have organised a number of international conferences, examining how the range of humanitarian and care activities of the Order will proceed in the twenty-first century. We are also verifying that its spiritual life is constantly renewed through its pilgrimages with the sick – especially the May journey to Lourdes, but in all the pilgrimages our members make, some of which are shown in this Report. I bring to your attention a selection of projects we undertake in the five continents, particularly those in the ‘focus’ section. They give a very human s we face a world where economic perspective to some of the things we do: in the distress is a fact of life, the plight Lebanon, the Order runs ten health care centres; of those who suffer – the poor, the in Cameroon, Congo and Kenya, through our relief sick, the homeless, internally service, Malteser International, we help AIDS displaced persons, refugees, the victims, those suffering from tubercolosis, A disabled, the elderly – becomes the internally displaced, and the very poor. ever more acute. We, members of a religious lay In Burma/Myanmar our relief service was one of Order with a 900-year old tradition of caring for the the few outside help providers permitted by the poor and the sick, are crucially aware of the need government after Cyclone Nargis hit the country. to look to our fellow man. This has always been Recently, we went to the aid of victims of the our mission, and it remains our mission and our earthquake in Sumatra and typhoon Ketsana in focus today. Vietnam. From our founding in , the Order has In Europe, the Italian Association’s medical concentrated on helping those who suffer. And in emergency corps work with the country’s Coast the twenty-first century, every hour of every day in Guard to aid the hundreds of immigrants who pack over 120 countries, Order members, staff and into tiny boats from North Africa to Lampedusa, volunteers work in our hospitals, hospices, day risking life and limb in search of a better future. care centres and schools. It is a work that never We continue to support the local population of ends, and a vocation that we are proud to carry out. another serious earthquake, in the Abruzzo area There have been great changes in the world of and, most recently, the victims of the 2010 situation and in that of the Order of . earthquakes in Haiti and in . Our beloved Grand Master Fra’ Andrew Bertie died This publication also includes sections on the in February 2008, leaving us to mourn his passing activities of the Order’s government and the but also to celebrate his legacy, in the great devel - special activities in our Library and Archives in the opments he oversaw in the Order during his twenty Grand Magistry. I hope you will find a better under - years at its helm. We have devoted a section of this standing of the Order of Malta and its life and publication to his memory and his works. works around the world through these pages.

Fra’ Matthew Festing 79th Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem of and of Malta

4 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA Message from the Grand Chancellor and the Grand Hospitaller

he Order is active in 120 countries, in Pakistan and Peru, by the devastating Cyclone where its 59 organisations – Nagis which caused the worst natural disaster Priories, National Associations and in the recorded history of Myanmar, by the earth - other Order organisations, initiate quake in Abruzzo, Italy, and that in Haiti, whose and sustain projects designed to devastation is still being assessed. T deliver emergency aid, healthcare, While such responses to immediate needs remain training and education for those in greatest need, an essential and highly visible part of the Order’s remaining true to its 900-year tradition of providing work, they are supplemented by other much care with compassion. longer-term activities which aim to eradicate, One abiding advantage provided by the Order’s or at least ameliorate, the impact of conditions sovereign status is the availability of open commu - such as HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria which continue nication channels between governments and our to take such a toll of human lives. network of ambassadors. Contacts maintained In many ways, it is through its continuing health - in this way frequently enable the Order to react care initiatives in countries and among communi - rapidly to emerging needs, and to speed the ties in every corner of the world that the Order is delivery of aid. In addition to full bilateral relation - able to make the longest-lasting contribution to ships with 104 countries, the Order maintains the wellbeing of humankind. official relations at Ambassador level with the This document contains many examples of this European Commission and has Permanent work, as well as special sections devoted to our Observer status at the United Nations and health and education programmes in Lebanon, strong relationships with many international and our work among Muslim people. Each, in its organisations. separate way, is a practical expression of the This Activity Report contains a brief – and by no Order’s unquestioning commitment to help the means exhaustive – overview of the work carried sick and the disadvantaged whoever and wherever out over the past two years by the many thousands they may be. of volunteers, members and staff of the Order. Sustainability is another important thread running It also provides a snapshot of the emergency through the Order’s provision not only of humani - aid which continues to be provided by Malteser tarian aid – where it is evidenced through initia - International, the Order’s worldwide organisation tives to support self-sufficient livelihoods among for emergency relief and rehabilitation. those impacted by poverty or natural disasters – Much of this work continues to redress the effects but also of healthcare projects. Education of local of earlier disasters, such as the South Asian communities in how to recognise the symptoms of tsunami of 2004, and to mitigate the impact of disease, and to protect themselves against it, long-running civil strife in some of the world’s forms an integral part of many such schemes. poorest countries. In addition, the Order has In all of these ways, the Order of Malta continues responded to new challenges created by severe to remain true to the spirit of its founders while flooding in and Sri Lanka, by earthquakes responding to the needs of a fast-changing world.

Jean-Pierre Mazery Grand Chancellor Grand Hospitaller

MESSAGE FROM THE GRAND MASTER 5 momentous events for the Order 2008-2009

6 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA Four momentous recent renewed leadership in the events touched the Order Order’s continuing worldwide: the passing challenges. Thereafter, of 78th Grand Master, the death of the Cardinal Fra’ Andrew Bertie, in Patronus, Pio Laghi, marked February 2008, mourned the loss of another inspiring for his goodness and example. His successor, spirituality. The following Paolo Sardi, month, Fra’ Matthew Festing is warmly welcomed to the was elected 79th Grand Order family. Master, amid great joy for

MOMENTOUS EVENTS FOR THE ORDER 2008 - 2009 7 The passing of Grand Master Fra’ Andrew Bertie

Fra’ Andrew Bertie, n 7 February 2008, leader, who ‘promoted grand initiatives the 78th Grand Master of for the Order in many countries, born 15 May 1929, the Order of Malta, convinced that now was the time for died 7 February 2008, Fra’ Andrew Bertie, died international solidarity against poverty, O peacefully in . He left hunger and social illnesses.’ having served as the Order’s a legacy of achievements 78th Grand Master for that stretched back over his leadership Fra’ Andrew Bertie, born 15 May 1929, of the Order during 20 exceptional years died 7 February 2008. Educated at twenty years. – a legacy noted with devotion by the , Christ Order’s 12,500 members around the Oxford and the School of Oriental and world, and remarked upon with great African Studies, University of . esteem by Cardinal Pio Laghi, the Saw service in the Scots Guards, Order’s Cardinal Patronus, who cele - became a financial journalist in the City brated his Requiem Mass. of London, then Head of Languages at spoke of ‘the gratitude, Worth School, Sussex. Admitted to the devotion and affection that many of us Order 1956, solemn vows 1981, served felt towards him. His sober and consis - on the Sovereign Council for seven tent approach, his modest and reserved years, elected Grand Master 1988. behaviour, his compassion towards the suffering,’ and he paid tribute to the Grand Master’s wise leadership in modernising and developing the Order’s activities around the world, in doubling its ranks of Ambassadors, in increasing the number of National Associations, in overseeing the many international conferences and meetings, all of which promoted the Order’s mission of tuitio The coat of arms of Grand Master Bertie fidei and obsequium pauperum.

The State Memorial was celebrated by Cardinal Angelo Sodano one month later and attended by mourners including Heads of State, senior members of the Vatican and the Italian Republic, civil and military authorities, as well as family, friends, members and volunteers, from around the world. The Cardinal recalled Fra’ Andrew’s kindness as well as his statesman like qualities, demonstrating his sincerity and religious devotion as well as his commitment to his role as the Order’s HMEH Fra’ Andrew Bertie

8 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA During his last meeting with Benedict XVI

Requiem Mass is celebrated for Grand Master Bertie, Church of , Rome, 14 February 2008

MOMENTOUS EVENTS FOR THE ORDER 2008 - 2009 9 Grand Master Fra’ Matthew Festing

11 March 2008, he electing body of the 1993, restored after being in abeyance Order, the Council for 450 years. the Grand of , Complete of State, Fra’ Matthew Festing was convened on 11 March 2008 A native of , T to elect a successor to Fra’ Matthew Festing was also elected 79th Grand Master. Fra’ Andrew Bertie. Benedictine educated at Ampleforth Fra’ Matthew Festing was duly elected College, and read history at St. John’s for life as the 79th Grand Master of the College, Cambridge. He saw service in Order of Malta and swore his Oath the Grenadier Guards, and subsequently before the Cardinal Patronus of the extended his love of the arts becoming Order, Cardinal Pio Laghi, and the an expert in the seventeenth century electoral body, through his professional life and adding to his already encyclopaedic knowledge Before his election as only the second of history and of the history of the Order Englishman in the Order’s 900 years to in particular. be elected Grand Master, Fra’ Matthew Festing had already made history in his In taking his Oath, the new Grand role as the first Grand Prior of England Master vowed to continue the great since the Priory’s re-establishment in works carried out by his predecessor.

The coat of arms of Grand Master Festing

Conversing with a patient

10 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA Televised Bible reading

With illegal immigrants

MOMENTOUS EVENTS FOR THE ORDER 2008 - 2009 11 Cardinal Pio Laghi Cardinal Patronus of the Sovereign Order of Malta, 1993 - 2009

is Eminence Cardinal Pio in Theology and was ordained in April In 2001, as Special Envoy to Israel and Laghi, who died in Rome on 1946. Further studies took him to the the Palestinian Authority, the Cardinal 10 January 2009, had Pontificia Università Lateranense, where consigned a personal message from the served the Order as he graduated in Law in 1950. Pope which urged the parties to declare H Cardinal Patronus for 16 He entered the in 1952 as a a ceasefire and return to dialogue. years. ‘The Order has lost diplomat in the Secretariat of State, and In 2003, during the Iraq crisis, Pope one of its most eminent members as served with distinction in Nicaragua, John Paul II sent him to Washington to well as a great moral and spiritual Washington, Delhi and Jerusalem. From advise President George Bush on the guide,’ the Grand Master Fra’ Matthew 1974 to 1980 he was Apostolic in position and initiatives taken by the Holy Festing, in mourning his passing, , then Apostolic Delegate, and See towards disarmament and peace in declared. from 1984, pro-Nuncio in Washington. the Middle East. From 1990 to 1999 he was of the A solemn Requiem Mass was celebrated Congregation for Education. by the of the , His Eminence Angelo Sodano, in St. Peter’s Basilica, in the presence of Pope Benedict XVI.

Created Cardinal in 1991 and nominated by Pope John Paul II as Cardinal Patronus of the Order in May 1993, Pio Laghi took on the important duties of promoting the spiritual concerns of the Order and its members, and the relationship between the Holy See and the Order of Malta. Most recently, his many commitments included the obsequies following the death of Grand Master Fra' Andrew Bertie and the swearing in of Grand Master Fra’ Matthew Festing. Members of the Order recall with affection his unfailing presence at the Order’s annual pilgrim - ages to Lourdes and to Loreto. Remembered, too, was his touching participation at the Order¹s annual inter - national summer camps for the young disabled, and despite failing health, he insisted on being in attendance at the 2008 youth camp in Stift Stams, .

Pio Laghi was born in 1922 in Castiglione, Italy. In 1942 he graduated Cardinal Pio Laghi

12 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA Archbishop Paolo Sardi pro-Patron of the Sovereign Order of Malta

s his successor, Pope cate of John Paul II, coordinated the with special responsibilities. Benedict XVI appointed Vatican office which edits the Pope’s On 6 January 1997, Pope John Paul II Archbishop Paolo Sardi texts and addresses. ordained him in the Vatican pro-Patron of the Basilica and he was nominated Vice A Sovereign Military Order Ordained a priest on 29 June 1958, after Camerlengo of Malta in June 2009. a licentiate in Theology he graduated in (chamberlain) of the Holy Roman The new Patron is Vice Chamberlain of Canon Law and Jurisprudence at the Church in 2004. the Holy Roman Church, and since 1996 Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Apostolic Nuncio with special responsi - . He taught moral theology in Turin Archibishop Paolo Sardi has the task of bilities. until 1976, when he was called to the promoting the spiritual interests of the Secretariat of State of the Vatican. In Order of Malta and its members and its Born in 1934 in Ricaldone, Italy, 1992 he was appointed Vice Councillor relations with the Holy See. Archbishop Sardi has, since the pontifi - and four years later, Apostolic Nuncio

Archbishop Paolo Sardi

MOMENTOUS EVENTS FOR THE ORDER 2008 - 2009 13 spirituality in action

14 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA The Christian message is at the heart of the Order’s mission to help those in need. The spiritual journey of every member is demonstrated in the actions he or she carries out to care for the poor and the sick, and thus, is spirituality in action.

SPIRITUALITY IN ACTION 15 A thousand years of faith

The pilgrimage is the ll the actions of the Order ‘To act consistently as Christians and as are a testimony of its and Dames of Malta we are outward sign of the living Christian faith. The moti - committed to being more and more faith. vation for this care, now deeply rooted in Christ and in the spiri - A almost a thousand years tuality of the Order, with training in practice, is the journey receiving great attention, to guarantee towards God. The Grand Commander, to our centuries-old Christian tradition who is responsible for the religious life the future it deserves. of the Order, emphasises the impor - And simply to be charity in the Lord, tance of the formation process for this we can operate as Knights and Dames journey as a pilgrim’s progress: the of the Order. Let us look at an example: demonstration of this care for the poor if I go into a monastery with a thousand- and the sick is seen through the many year old tradition, I am immediately pilgrimages members of the Order aware of an atmosphere that is make every year: decidedly different from that which one finds in a more recent community - thus simply to say that our tradition has given, and gives, life to that which we define as ‘the Order’. It is a question of refinement of spirit, which illuminates through its external actions and its internal conviction to serve the most neglected in society – a service which recalls the humility of Christ’s action in washing the feet of His disciples: a supreme sign of a love that instructs, that nothing is of its own but that all is shared and communicated, and to which the members of our Order are called to conform, embracing in a way that is exemplary and unique: ‘As I have done to you, do unto others in like manner.’ It is not an exaggeration to say that he or she who enters, or is already part of our Order, is convinced that responding in this way to a precise vocation by living the Christian faith and caring for the needy, is the hinge of one’s own spiritual life and mission in the world.’

The Grand Commander, Fra’ Gherardo Hercolani Fava Simonetti

16 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA Pilgrimage

pilgrimage is a journey to train or plane, with unshakeable deter - pilgrimage is one of the means for sacred places inspired by mination to reach their goal: Jerusalem, achieving this end. The pilgrim who religious devotion. For the Santiago de Compostela, Croagh joins a regional, national or interna - Order of Malta, the spirit Patrick, , Lourdes, Jasna tional group leaves his home and makes A of pilgrimage dates from Gora, Fatima and many more. All hold his way towards a Shrine. There is an its foundation in 1048; special significance for the pilgrim, who exterior movement, marked by the its hospital in Jerusalem was set up for traditionally suffers hardship on his various stages of the journey, and there this purpose. For centuries the Order journey, traditionally wears special is also an interior dimension which has run hostels and first aid posts all clothes and shares his trials with fellow gives meaning to this "onward march". over Europe to offer shelter and food to pilgrims and his beliefs in the personal For a believer it is a life-giving experi - pilgrims. Allied to this is its mission to spiritual importance of this undertaking. ence which should lead to the formation care for the poor and the sick - Order of a "new heart" and a "new spirit" pilgrimages always include accompa - The Order of Malta pilgrimages are under the influence of . nying the sick, a sharing of love and ‘steps in the spiritual ascent of the Setting out from our home or native care for those who need help. It is a members of the Order. The fruits they land, being closely involved with the sick mission which distinguishes each and produce are measured by the growth in and suffering, reminds us of the tran - every pilgrimage. their Christian life and in their commit - sience of life.’ ment to works of charity,’ guides the Over time, millions of the faithful, the of the Order, Archbishop Angelo Members of the Order make pilgrim - sick, the sceptical, the hopeful, have Acerbi. ‘The Order of Malta is a religious ages every year to venerated shrines made their journeys to the Holy Places order and one of its objectives is to around the world for their spiritual and to sites of apparitions and miracles, promote the sanctification of its guidance. The following pages give on foot, on horseback, by carriage, car, members. In the tradition of the Order, some examples.

Every year in Lourdes the Order renews its commitment to the faith and care of the sick

SPIRITUALITY IN ACTION 17 Lourdes

The Order’s spirituality is his most famous of all since then and the sick come from all Marian shrines celebrates over the world to bathe in the waters of evidenced every year in the the appearance of the the spring and to find peace of soul. international pilgrimage to to Bernadette, a 14 The Order of Malta has for over 50 years T year old peasant girl, in a made an annual international Lourdes. grotto in the mountainous pilgrimage each May to Lourdes, region of Lourdes, in February 1858, bringing thousands of sick and wheel - who, in exposing a spring in the rocky chair bound pilgrims. In 2009, the ground, brought forth pure water which pilgrimage, led by the Grand Master, was found to have healing properties. totalled 7,000 pilgrims from 35 The site has witnessed many miracles countries.

Knights, Dames and Order in procession

18 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA SPIRITUALITY IN ACTION 19 : : the Irish Association. Jerusalem, Nazareth, Bethlehem, Altötting, Kevelaer, Telgte Sea of Galilee, River Jordan Walsingham: in north Norfolk has been Altötting: every July since 1970, a place of pilgrimage since medieval The most famous of all pilgrimages Malteser Hilfsdienst (MHD) has been times, when travel to Rome or is to the Holy Land. An international taking a pilgrimage drawn from all the Compostela was virtually impossible. pilgrimage of the Order in October 2007 Bavarian dioceses to the Black Madonna The Knights of St. John have for saw a gathering of 1400 pilgrims, in the 13th century chapel in Altotting, centuries managed the hostels en route. members of the Order from around the Germany’s most significant Marian According to tradition, in 1061 the Virgin world, representing 20 countries. shrine, where in 1489 a small child, Mary appeared three times to the lady of The members of the Sovereign Council, believed drowned, was brought back to the manor. She felt as if she were trans - Cardinal Pio Laghi, Cardinal Patronus, life and where numerous miracles have ported to the house in Nazareth, where and the Prelate of the Order, Archbishop since been credited. Mary was told that she was to have a Angelo Acerbi, led the international son. A wooden replica of the ‘Holy congregation in prayer over the historic Kevelaer: for over 20 years, the German House’ was built as a shrine to five days, visiting all the Holy Places. Association has taken pilgrims from the Our Lady of Walsingham, and later In his message to the pilgrims, Grand Cologne dioceses – members, volun - incorporated in the chapel of the Master Fra’ Andrew Bertie, said. teers and the sick – to the shrine where, Augustinian priory. The Order of Malta’s 'Jerusalem, central to our Christian in 1641, a simple man, Hendrick British Association has brought sick faith, has also a special significance for Busmann, had heard a voice asking him pilgrims there every September for over us here, where founded to build a chapel on this spot to Mary, 50 years. In 2009, 190 Order pilgrims - our Order over 900 years ago. It is here Comforter of the Afflicted (Consolatrix members, the Order of Malta Volunteers that the selfless example shown by him afflictorum). This year, over 1,000 and the Companions of the Order with and his community of religious, by their Malteser pilgrims made the journey, 60 malades - made the journey to the work in the hospital of St. John of to pray and to be comforted. shrine. Jerusalem, inspired our mission: tuitio fidei, obsequium pauperum. And today, Telgte: a wooden statue of the mater Ireland: again, we are proud to have a hospital in dolorosa, a ‘pietà’, dating from 1370, Knock, Croagh Patrick this region, our Hospital in is housed in the 17th century chapel of Bethlehem. Pilgrimages have always St. Clemens which was built to shelter Knock is Ireland's National Shrine to been a focus of our Order, offering to all it. Each year, the MHD provides first aid Our Lady: in August 1879, Our Lady, who participate - the handicapped, the for the pilgrims, who come from the St. and St. pilgrims, the volunteers, the helpers - a diocese of Münster, on the 45km walk appeared at the south gable of Knock spiritual fulfilment like no other.' from Osnabrück to Telgte - a procession Church, with the apparition first ordered by Bishop Galen in 1651 witnessed by fifteen people, young and Austria: and an annual pilgrimage for the faithful old. From this miraculous apparition Mariazell for over 400 years. Knock has grown to become an interna - tionally recognised Marian Shrine. The Shrine of Our Lady of Mariazell, Great Britain: The Irish Association of the Order Styria, is the most visited Marian shrine Holywell, Walsingham organises an annual pilgrimage to in Central Europe and a pilgrimage site Knock on the last Sunday of August and for 850 years. Founded in 1157 by the Holywell: St Winefride’s Well in Wales is 2009 saw some 1,000 pilgrims - 700 Benedictine of St. Lambrecht’s the oldest shrine in Britain in contin - members of the Order’s Ambulance Abbey, it houses the12th-century uous use and an official pilgrimage site Corps together with 250 elderly and limewood statue of the Virgin Mary in of the Order of Malta. The town of disabled guests. Pilgrims and personnel the Gnaden Church (rebuilt 1644–83). Holywell takes its name from the travelled in hired coaches from each of Pope Benedict XVI, who visited Mariazell St Winefride's Well, a holy well the nine regions of the Ambulance in 2007, told the pilgrims that the site surrounded by a chapel and known Corps to make this a truly national ‘symbolises an openness which... tran - since at least the Roman period. It has pilgrimage. scends physical and national frontiers.’ been pilgrimage site since about 660 The Austrian Grand Priory makes its when Winefride was beheaded Croagh Patrick is a very special place of pilgrimage there each September with there by Caradog who had attacked her. pilgrimage in Ireland. It is renowned for members, volunteers and malades, This year¹s pilgrimage, run jointly by the its Patrician Pilgrimage in honour of never numbering less than 300. British Association and the Order of , Ireland's patron saint. Malta Volunteers, saw the English It was on the summit of the mountain pilgrims also joined by members from that Saint Patrick fasted for forty days in

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SPIRITUALITY IN ACTION 21 441 AD and the custom has been faith - Basilica of Guadalupe, which commem - : fully handed down from generation to orates the 1531 visitation of the Blessed Santiago de Compostela generation for over 1,500 years. Many Virgin Mary to St. Juan Diego. people climb the mountain barefoot. The The pilgrimage included Knights and The establishment of Santiago as a Order of Malta has been providing service Dames of the Association, together with pilgrim site is due to the discovery of the to pilgrims on the mountain since 1943. over 100 volunteers and handicapped tomb of the Apostle In 2009, 20,000 people participated in the pilgrims, many in wheel chairs. early in the 9th century. A pilgrimage to annual pilgrimage at Croagh Patrick. The Archbishop of Mexico City, HE Santiago de Compostela is different Cardinal Don , from all other pilgrimages: it is the Italy: celebrated Mass for the congregation. journey itself (the ‘camino’), not the Assisi, Loreto arrival, that is most important. Everyone : follows his own camino, sets his own Assisi: in celebration of Mary’s feast day Czestochowa pace. ‘It is more essential than in any of 8 September, the Order makes an other pilgrimage to arrive slowly, to take annual pilgrimage to Assisi. This year, Every year on a May Sunday the Polish time, to reflect,’ says Gottfried Kühnelt- led by the Grand Master, the solemn Association of the Order organises a Leddihn, who recently organised a procession proceeded to the Basilicia pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady of pilgrimage there. ‘On the final trek to of Santa Maria degli Angeli, where the Czestochowa, in the Monastery of Jasna Monte do Gozo, the mount of joy, after Order’s pro-patron, Archbishop Paolo Góra, a place extremely important in the your long journey you get the first sight Sardi, celebrated Mass, together with spiritual life of all Poles, which houses of Santiago. At the impressive Pilgrims’ the Prelate of the Order, Archbishop the miraculous icon of the Black Mass we witnessed the swinging of the Angelo Acerbi, and many Order Madonna, said to have been painted by huge ‘butafumeiro’, by six men. chaplains. ‘The birth of Mary repre - St. Luke, and safely guarded throughout An amazing experience which tested our sented a decisive moment in the history a troubled history. Pope John Paul said mental and physic limits.’ of humanity,’ Mons.Sardi said in his on visiting in 1999: ‘This place is so dear On the occasion of the next Jacobean homily. ‘She is a model of sanctity which to my heart and so dear to each of you, Holy Year, the Grand Master will lead an inspires us.’ And in this, the eighth dear brothers and sisters. We are used international pilgrimage of the Order to centenary of the Rule of the Franciscan to coming here and bringing our Santiago in October 2010. Whenever St Order, he recalled the shining example personal and family problems, as well James's day (25th July) falls on a of holiness and care for the poor and the as the vital issues of the nation ... just Sunday, the cathedral declares a Holy or weak given by St. Francis. as our ancestors did in every century.’ Jubilee Year.

Loreto: The Holy House of Loreto is one : of the most revered Marian shrines in Fátima the world. Since medieval times, the Holy House has been believed to be the The Portuguese Association’s annual Photographs: home in which the Virgin Mary lived, pilgrimage to Fátima, the site of the conceived and raised the young Jesus. most important Marian apparitions in Page 19: In 1469 a large basilica was built around Portugal – when Mary appeared to three Lourdes pilgrimage, 2009 the small shrine, and the sacred site shepherd children in 1917 - takes place attracts 4 million Catholic pilgrims and each May and includes offering support Page 21: visitors each year. Over the centuries, at six points on the routes to the shrine 1. Great Britain: Walsingham the countless pilgrims kneeling inside – over a distance of 130 Km. 2. Austria: Basilica of Mariazell the basilica around the Holy House, have The campaign, organised over many 3. Holy Land: Church of the Nativity, worn a trough in the hard rock. Every months, includes 150 volunteers Bethlehem October, the Order makes its own (medical, administrative, religious) as 4. Austria: St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna pilgrimage, led by the Grand Master, well as many members of the Order. with members, volunteers and many Pilgrims come back year after year, Page 23: handicapped. grateful for the voluntary work on their 1. Italy: Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli, behalf; for their part, the volunteers Assisi Mexico: also return annually, in the spirit of 2. Portugal: Fatima Guadalupe service for those in need. At the end of 3. Italy: Loreto their work, they participate in a Mass of 4. Spain: Santiago de Compostela August 28, 2009: the annual pilgrimage thanksgiving and celebration. 5. Mexico: Basilica of Guadalupe, Mexico City of the sick, run by the Mexican Association, went to the National

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SPIRITUALITY IN ACTION 23 focus

24 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA In all of the Order’s activities to help those who suffer, there are personal stories, of courage and of heartbreak, as well as of hard work and dedication. Reported here are some closeup accounts of daily life in difficult situations where the Order’s help is needed.

FOCUS 25 TOTAL AREA: 10,452 sq km Lebanon POPULATION: 4,017,095

In every clinic, every day, GDP PER CAPITA: $11,100

Christians and Muslims wait, LIFE EXPECTANCY AT BIRTH: shoulder to shoulder 73.66 years

In the hills behind the recognising these needs, ur correspondent went to observe the work of the majestic cedars of Lebanon has for many years now Order of Malta in the bow over this land of supported the needy and the O Lebanon richness and turmoil, sick, in the Order’s age old Visits to the Order’s this historic cradle of tradition of caring for all. projects are planned to span out over a week and cover many miles and many . Today, the In its ten health care centres, situations across the region. The first is country is recovering from spread over the country from to a small town near Sidon. It operates a war and chaos again, the north to the south, to the medical centre and a mobile unit for outlying areas. With a medical staff of 12 building lives and livelihoods borders with Syria and with the Centre carries out over 8,500 again, from out of the most Israel, the same mission is medical acts per year, treating people from all the surrounding villages, recent damage. Beirut practised, day in, day out, providing medical and dental care, a savours another rebirth. with the same dedication to pharmacy and a laboratory. Both here and in the other Centres we visit, we But in the countryside life helping all who call on them meet numbers of doctors and dentists is hard and the people poor. for assistance. In every who have been trained abroad and who have come home to help their own They need health care and clinic, every day, Christians people. training and work - and hope and Muslims sit shoulder The Mobile Unit is operated by the Order for their future and the to shoulder as they wait of Malta, in collaboration with the Iman future of their children. patiently to be attended to El Sadr Foundation which provides a The Lebanese Association by the Order’s staff. health care clinic and a school for 400 girls – one of the few for girls in the of the Order of Malta, in region. Mme Rabab el Sadr Cherafeddine, President of the Foundation, has run the centre for the last 25 years, seen many changes and The Caravan project known many sadnesses, including An international project launched by the Lebanese and German Associations of the losing 34 members of her own family in Order in mid 2009 – the Caravan project - gives young people the opportunity to the 2006 bombing. Today the Mobile Unit carry out social work abroad within the Order’s programmes. With Caravan, is in the main square of a local village, the young participants will have a preparation programme on the Middle East, in front of a memorial to Christianity and Islam in the region, and the spirituality of the Order’s mission to soldiers. The queue of arrivals from ten serve the marginalised in society. They will learn Arabic and care for the handi - surrounding villages is long: the Unit’s capped young and the poor. They will then spend six months in the medical centres doctor and nurses are literally life - the Order runs in the Lebanon. savers. The patients stand quietly in For more information, see www.libanonprojekt.de line, smiling shyly at us. Behind them, a sunray spills across the many tomb -

26 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA Treatment for the young _ is high priority in rural _ regions where healthcare _ is scarce. _

The Order has 10 medical centres and 2 mobile clinics operating throughout the country

FOCUS 27 stones covered with flowers and yellow variety of medical conditions - particu - no money. The lack of social welfare flags. larly, cardiac problems. Sr. Nada notes infrastructure hampers progress. difficulties in getting sufficient Then to the Order of Malta Medical medicines to dispense, especially for the The next visit is to the north, to the Centre, Yaroun, which looks towards chronically ill, because of the ending of Bekaa Valley - famous for its climate Syria, mountain fold on mountain fold. deliveries of free medicines from and the Roman ruins at Baalbek - to the The Centre sits like a small outpost – Europe (wich are now distributed at Order’s Centre at Kobayat. En route, now rebuilt after suffering serious production cost) and the high cost of a flying stopover at the Centre at damage in the 2006 Israeli bombard - buying them locally. Khaldieh, where the staff of 33 doctors ments. The Sisters who run it with perform over 40,000 medical acts each support from the Order overwhelm us We detour to see the reconstructed year, assisted by 10 paramedics, with warmth and hospitality and their church of Our Lady of the Assumption 6 administrative staff and a proud tech - dedication to their patients. Dr. Hoda in Baraachit, under the care of Fr. Fady nician, who has run his efficient labora - Issa, a psychologist who works with the Ziadé, a haunting figure, bone thin, tory over many years.

The Order’s Mobile Units bring medical aid to outlying villages where basic health care is not provided

children of the local villages, explains: gentle, working alone for the last ten Kobayat is a small village which was ‘These youngsters have lived through years to support the Christians in his bombarded during the civil war of 1988. frightening times, and many still suffer village and the surrounding countryside. It houses an Order of Malta Medical trauma.’ They reveal their anxieties His church was heavily damaged in the Centre, which treats an average of 40 through their drawings and Dr. Hoda can recent war. With help from the Order patients every morning and is kept very then diagnose their problems. around the world it has been completely busy, supported by a staff of 6 doctors, rebuilt. He is very grateful, but his 4 paramedics and 4 administrators. The next visit is to inspect the Mobile struggle never ends and there is Another service is legal advice for Unit at Ain Ebel, which treats patients sadness for the poverty and lack of hope immigrants and detainees. The sisters from six surrounding villages, averaging among his flock. They cannot anticipate worry about the serious rise in the cost 500 patients per month. There is a a better life. They have no education, of medicines, and the cost of living.

28 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA From here, to Barqa, through mountain is run by Sr. , who employs kitchen staff, and two van drivers who villages, some Muslim, some Christian, 32 women from the local area. ‘There collect in each village and bring their some mixed. The Centre, also assisted are no women left in the villages charges down to the Centre for by the Order, gleams brightly, attesting around,’ she says. ‘They are all here! breakfast, coffee, lunch, and a lot of fun. to years of loving care and polishing. Some are Muslim, some are Christian. The day starts with Mass or a prayer It is headed by Sr. Marie-Rachelle, who They all learn a skill, they are active and (30% are Muslim), then there are has commanded it for over twenty years, they can support their families. We are games, gym - and dancing for the together with members of her congre - very happy with this experiment and sprightly. They receive medical training, gation (Soeurs des Coeurs). Their they are very happy too.’ Sr. Marie- learning how to take care of themselves. Dispensaire has over 16,000 registered Rachelle looks for other business All this is overseen by Sr. Alfred-Marie, patients from 84 surrounding villages, opportunities: we could also sell little whose kitchen is another reason averages 25,000 medical acts per year, bags of lavender abroad, she muses. everyone wants to come. She sees 54 and sees between 25 and 60 patients a participants a day – and they all get a day. Most are too poor to afford Then to the Day Care Centre for the terrific lunch! Abdul, who has been

The Khaldieh Clinic, Northern Lebanon, with a medical staff of 33 cares for 40,000 patients annually transport to the Centre, so they hitch Elderly at Roum, in the mountains near coming for the five years since his wife hike, she explains. Sidon. Like all the Order Centres, this died, flirts with all and sundry, winks at one, too, is sparkling clean and bright. Sr. Alfred-Marie, and is full of praise for Sr. Marie-Rachelle, a dynamo rather in Its aim is to be a club, not an elderly this new lease of life the Centre and its the of Mother Theresa, is a home, to reintegrate the old as active staff have given him. resourceful business woman. A recent members of society. They come from inspiration was her agreement with a 44 nearby mountain villages, where they From here, higher into the mountains, company in Beirut for her villagers to are isolated, as all the young have left to a ‘warm home’ – so-called for the run a sewing factory for lingerie which in search of work in Beirut or abroad. welcome it extends to all the local is then sent to Beirut and sold in There is a team of 16 - doctors, social villagers - a small establishment in the America and Arab countries. The factory workers, accountants, volunteers, little village of Ain Majdalein. It offers

FOCUS 29 Dr.Hoda Issa, child psychologist: ‘These youngsters knew frightening times.’ Traumatised, they reveal their anxieties through their drawings

free breakfast and coffee to the elderly balneo-therapy centre for disabled who shrinks into a corner. Her special inhabitants and has been so successful adults and a home for disabled children. needs teacher explains that she is very that two more have been set up. At the former is Jean-Marie, a French sad because she realises her mother They serve 60 square kilometres around physiotherapist who, on visiting the doesn’t love her. ‘She is inconsolable,’ Roum, and are run by two groups from Centre some years ago, was so inspired he says. Sidon, staff and volunteers who care for that he sold up everything and has come Arriving at the age of five, all must leave an increasingly ageing population (by to live and work here. The focal point is at 16, making way for others, returning 2020, 60% of Lebanese will be over 65). the swimming pool for hydrotherapy, a to their poor neighbourhoods, with ‘Most of the elderly are women, 75% are donation from the Lebanese Association, nothing to do and no hope of employ - Christian, the rest Muslim. Inflation is Ordre de Malte and the ment. Many fall into deep depression. running at about 60%; the cost of fuel European Union. There are no compensatory social rose by 60% in the last eighteen services in the country for this age group. months,’ says volunteer Tania Haddad. Sr. Marie-Geneviève takes us around the There is no government support for well appointed establishment for the We visit some of the classes and find these needy groups. young disabled. They are cared for with Issa, three, born without arms, using his love and commitment by the sisters and feet to lift a bottle of water to drink with As the car snakes back down the the medical and support staff. great dexterity, amid applause from the mountain through Roum, along its The Centre offers as many possibilities visitors. And then Samer, 15, who can skyline are profiled a huddle of roof for development – mental, physical, and work on a computer and proudly tops, the famed cedars of Lebanon, a interests such as art, music, computers, completes arithmetical problems online church spire and the dome of a mosque. languages – as they can manage. without help. On leaving this setting full The children are full of joy and as we of light and love, Sr. Genevieve quotes Next stop is Bhannès, north east of meet them, their faces light up. All Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: ‘With joy, Beirut. The Centre has two special except Leila, a diminutive four-year-old the more that is given, the more it concerns supported by the Order – a with huge raisin eyes and soft curly hair, multiplies!’

30 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA And then an afternoon visit to Jal El Dib, care for the local community, mostly Association’s plans to continue their a hospital, convent and home for Muslim. Eye disease is a major problem vital work: ‘Our current project costs are severely disabled children run by the – some suffer from the age of four. US$ 2.8 million per annum – and this is Lebanese Franciscan Sisters of the Elderly poor come for meals twice a before we can consider future develop - Cross. Most of the children have been week, often making long, difficult ments which we so need to provide.’ abandoned, often found in alleys or journeys. Many have no families, so the One has only to recall the disabled doorways, all needing total, constant sisters and Order volunteers organise young of Bhannès, leaving their college care. Their great pleasure is the antici - celebrations each Christmas and Easter. full of light and activity and love to pation of their summer holiday: since Christians, and often Muslims, attend. return to a darkness and boredom that 1998, the youth group of the German ‘The concern right now’, pharmacist may never be relieved; and to reflect on Association of the Order has run a camp Guitta Abouhaidar explains, ‘is procuring the dedication of the sisters who live in Lebanon for children such as these, medicines’ – a problem we have seen in and work in these Centres, of the staff who usually live in homes. The young all the Centres: the deliveries from who support them every day, of the

‘The concern now is to procure free medicines.’ Pharmacist Guitta Abouhaidar has distributed them to Order Centres in Lebanon for 13 years volunteers arrive for the summer and Europe are no longer free and the cost Order volunteers and donors, of the love offer their love, time and money. So far, of buying them locally is high. For the and care shown to all in need, over 300 have come, giving 150 young last 13 years, Mme Guitta has been completely impartially, in this region charges a week’s stay each, with lots of distributing medicines from here to the still recovering from its most recent war fun and new friends. ‘They look forward Order’s ten Centres in the Lebanon. experiences, its people clinging to life, to this every year, and talk about it for Now she is worried for future provision to hope for the future. months beforehand,’ say the sisters. and for her patients all over the country. This is the cradle of Christianity. We owe Last stop is Medical Then, a meeting with the President of it to all these courageous people to Centre, on the edge of Beirut, another the Order’s Lebanese Association, guard it and keep it and care for it. Order health care programme. 33 staff Marwan Sehnaoui, who describes the

FOCUS 31 TOTAL AREA: 582,650 sq km Kenya POPULATION: 39,002,772

HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis: Africa GDP PER CAPITA: $1,600

struggles with challenges that LIFE EXPECTANCY AT BIRTH: won’t go away 57.86 years

In parts of Africa people are he Riruta health centre, Out of the inferno run by the Order of Malta’s After having visited the health ‘paradise’ still desperately fighting relief service in the slums which is Riruta, we are plunged into against diseases which seem of Nairobi well deserves Dante’s inferno as we arrive at the T the Kenyan National Award Mukuro Nyayo slum, accompanied by only a faraway memory to for the best managed Margaret and the Malteser International the developed world. tuberculosis facility (a it has won for team. Coordinator for Kenya, two consecutive years). However, Paul Ochieng is a university graduate. the work in this centre which cares for He tells me he was born and grew up 600,000 people and which also treats in a slum and that when his own five HIV/AIDS patients, goes far beyond children were old enough he took them technical excellence. It is the people to see it, so that they would understand who work there who make the differ - the importance of studying and of hard ence - people like Jane, the staff nurse, work to make better lives for them - with her group of volunteer community selves. The slum is difficult to describe, workers, Margaret, Mary, Lucy and even when seen on a sunny day under a young , who actually live in the perfect blue sky. It is a maze of rickety, slums and are each responsible for the tiny huts made out of corrugated metal, area where they live. The secret of their wood, cardboard, with ‘streets’ of success? Endless hours of health pressed earth, deeply scored by rivulets education and counselling to enable of some unidentifiable liquid (possibly their patients to take responsibility for water). And then we duck into a hut and Africans, as well as being themselves, to ensure that they realise meet Scholastica, who is only 33, but the necessity of taking their medications looks like an emaciated 80 year old. blighted by HIV/AIDS, are regularly, to encourage the neighbour - Her head is covered with sparse wisps still dying of tuberculosis and hood to look out for each other, banish of hair, the skin is drawn so tight over the plague, even though the fear that AIDS and TB engender and her face that it looks like a skull and she make the centre a patient-friendly place is covered with AIDS sores. She quietly these diseases were to go. Riruta is indeed that; everything tells me that she has been on TB theoretically wiped out is clean and tidy, patients’ charts are therapy for three months and hopes that safely locked away, nobody is wearing a she will soon be well enough to start almost a century ago. Our face mask or gloves. Even young Juliet, AIDS treatment. She was referred to the correspondent went to Kenya who has been on TB therapy for three Riruta centre by a district hospital and weeks and looks very frail but beautiful, could not at first believe that she would and Congo to see for herself. like a Masai statuette, is beginning to not have to pay for the medications and feel reassured. At last she has begun to that the community workers would reply to Jane’s requests and accepts to make sure that she received her supply be weighed! Our reward: a shy smile as at home when she was too weak to go to we applaud her for a 2 kg. weight gain. the centre. Her husband works occa - sionally as a driver and two of her children live with her in the country. Her oldest child, a 14 year old boy (and probably the only member of

32 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA the family not to be HIV positive), goes to in a slum, Paul tells me, does not come The health centres _ school and is the best in his class. When cheap: the average rent is € 10 a Malteser International _ I ask her how she survives on no money month, and that is a fortune to these she tells me that her neighbours are people. supports care for 600,000 _ very helpful. patients in Nairobi _ After Scholastica we meet Magdalene, Christopher, Purity and many others, slums. ‘It is the people _ none of whom is more than 40 years old, who work there who _ all of whom have tuberculosis and AIDS, are poor and could otherwise not afford make the difference.’ _ to pay for their care, because even living

In the slums of Nairobi two million people struggle for survival

FOCUS 33 TOTAL AREA: 2,345,410 sq km Congo POPULATION: 68,692,542

Building a different future GDP PER CAPITA: $300

LIFE EXPECTANCY AT BIRTH: 54.36 years

A flying visit to Democratic alteser International has But the Black Death still rages been active in the breath - From Buu we visit the Ndrele Health Republic of Congo leaves takingly beautiful region Centre, which has achieved outstanding a lasting impression: there is of Ituri and Haut Uélé, success in the treatment of the plague. M near the Northern border It seems almost impossible that the much work to be done to help with Uganda, since 1966. ‘Black Death’ of the Middle Ages, which victims of disease and Initially, activities consisted of assisting had at one point killed one third of the the Diocese of Mahagi in the distribution European population, could be of violence. of medicines. prevented and treated simply by training This year they opened two large phar - and educating the people at risk. maceutical warehouses in Mahagi and Alphonsine, a strong looking middle- Ariwara, which supply two medical aged woman, is one of this breed of districts with 2,000,000 inhabitants. survivors. She probably cannot read or write, but when she woke up one Very soon it became apparent that two morning feeling feverish with a major health problems needed to be headache and very painful underarm addressed: the plague (which is lymph nodes she thought back and endemic in the area) and sexual violence remembered having seen some dead (which had escalated dramatically since rats around her house. So she asked the second Congolese war in 1998- her neighbours to take her to hospital 2003). where she received immediate In both cases the problem is communi - treatment and was discharged within a cation. As far as sexual violence is few days – and without paying a cent, concerned, the numbers are still very she added with a huge smile! Disinfecting a village house high: each month there are at least 400 from the plague new reported cases. The women now Before leaving Ndrele we have the know that if they come to the Buu centre opportunity of watching a disinfestation within 72 hours of being raped they will campaign. Two men with special be given post exposure prophylaxis, clothing and masks spray all the huts which minimises the risk to contracting and the surrounding area within a 200 AIDS or sexually transmitted diseases. metre radius from Alphonsine’s hut. Also, should they become pregnant as a Starting from the outer perimeter they consequence of being raped, they will then converge towards Alphonsine’s hut receive assistance during their to the delight and amusement of the pregnancy. All victims and, if possible, whole village. The downside of this is their partners and families are given that unfortunately this procedure is very expert counselling in order to fight the expensive: the yearly cost is €300,000. stigma connected with rape, which When we leave, and inevitably once normally resulted in these women being again we leave part of our hearts with rejected by their families and villages. our black brothers and sisters who struggle so bravely against their adver - sities, we are chased by all the school - children of Ndrele in their blue and

34 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA white uniforms, who compete in running The Ndrele Health Centre has achieved _ barefoot after our car. I shall never outstanding success in the treatment of the plague. _ forget one little chap who looked the youngest and who was wearing only an This disease of the Middle Ages, _ unbuttoned shirt and a huge smile on his face! It was a picture of such which killed one third of the European _ freedom and joy that it is difficult to imagine for him anything but a happy, population, still threatens. _ healthy future. Let us hope that the work the Order carries out in this stricken land will contribute to the reali - sation of such a future.

In South Kivu, Ituri and Haut-Uélé, Malteser International supports 27 health zones and 380 health centres

FOCUS 35 TOTAL AREA: 475,440 sq km Cameroon POPULATION: 18,879,301

Great contrasts, great problems, GDP PER CAPITA: $2,300

tireless care LIFE EXPECTANCY AT BIRTH: 53.69 years

The Saint Jean de Malte ameroon is a land of great equal parts by the Order, the contrasts: along the Compagnie Fruitière and the local hospital, Njombe. roadside nature looks lush Ministry of Health. Out patients have to and prosperous and then pay a fixed sum, but they know that C as you round a bend you nobody will be turned away even if they suddenly see a shanty do not have the money immediately settlement with rickety stalls set on available. muddy soil selling all sorts of cheap This was confirmed to me by wares, often without even the ubiquitous Jacqueline, a beautiful young mother TV aerials or the noisy background whose cheerful tiny plaits and colourful music which are so typical of African dress belie the empty look in her eyes. shanty towns. She is sitting composedly in a room, Two hours drive from Douala there is watching a strangely quiet little boy with a smallish signpost at a crossroads his right arm in a sling. A week ago she flanked by endless rows of banana was woken by a phone call early in the plants announcing the biggest contrast morning telling her that her partner and of all: ‘L’Hôpital Saint Jean de Malte’. her two little boys had been involved in It leads to an impeccably well kept a serious car crash, but that everybody garden sourraunded by single storey was fine. When she got to the hospital rectangular buildings. On entering, she discovered that her partner and In the midst of a banana plantation, it exudes an atmosphere of quiet effi - eight year old son, Major, were in a Saint Jean de Malte Hospital ciency where the kind and competent coma with multiple fractures and that staff work among patients who wait for her five year old had died. She had been their turn in dignified surroundings. amazed that nobody had asked for Even the children stay close to their money before admitting them to the parents and are on their best behaviour! hospital, which would have been the The French Director, Gilbert Hann, told case in all the other Cameroonian me about the hospital: how it was hospitals, and to learn that she would created in 1996 by the Compagnie not be expected to pay until her family Fruitière (the banana plantation) to care had collected the necessary sum left her for their 6,000 workmen and their speechless. In the meantime her families as in those days there was no partner had come out of his coma and national health system in Cameroon was being treated for his fractures (she Hospital statistics: (and there still isn’t). In 2000 the still had not told him about the loss of • 140 local staff hospital passed into the care of the his son) and little Major was slowly • 103 beds Ordre de Malte France and became the regaining consciousness. Jacqueline • 24,000 medical examinations showcase it is today. It has 140 local proudly showed me all his exercise a year staff, 103 beds, carries out 24,000 books, full of 10/10 marks and • 3,600 admissions a year medical examinations, 3,600 admissions “excellent” and “well done” comments • more than 400 deliveries a year. and more than 400 deliveries a year. and as an aside mentioned that she was • Within a radius of 150 km it is also Within a radius of 150 km. it is also the planning to baptise Major and her the only facility with 8 incubators. only facility with 8 incubators. youngest baby because it had been God The hospital is supported in almost who had saved Major.

36 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA Anna who at 39 is a single mother with from a small market stall – about 40 “We cure the children, _ six children (the youngest is a year old) portions a day. but it is God _ further confirmed this. She was in The paediatrician, Medical Coordinator hospital with her eldest, unmarried, Dr. Manga, is the dean of the hospital who heals them” _ daughter who had had an emergency medics and an enthusiastic supporter breach delivery. She was waiting to of all the changes that have been made collect the necessary 150,000 CFA since 2000. His dream is to have new (approx. €200) to pay the hospital and incubators and more staff: sometimes then she would go back home with one there are only two nurses to look after more mouth to feed from her meagre 40 children. His motto is: we cure the income. She proudly told me that she children, but it is God who heals them. sells the food she prepares at home

The Hospital, the only facility in a 150km radius with incubators, delivers 400 babies a year

FOCUS 37 TOTAL AREA: 678,500 sq km Burma/Myanmar POPULATION: 48,137,741

How one charity got to cyclone GDP PER CAPITA: $1,200

victims first LIFE EXPECTANCY AT BIRTH: 63.39 years

Malteser International was eavily pregnant, in tears Last week American navy ships left the the whole time, a Burmese vicinity, having been unable to deliver able to deliver food and aid worker for Malteser the relief supplies with which they were medicine in Burma/Myanmar International insists on laden. Foreign aid agencies have been H accompanying the first struggling to get into the country to despite the political relief convoy from Rangoon deliver basic supplies, medicine and difficulties. back to her hometown Labutta, a city at sanitation. And a month after the the heart of the Irrawaddy Delta region. cyclone struck, supplies are still not Only nine days earlier the cyclone getting to villages in the affected caught her family and hundreds of regions and foreign aid workers are thousands of Burmese living in the being forced to wait for permission to Irrawaddy Delta region by surprise. leave Ragoon for the Irrawaddy Delta. The young mother-to-be has lost 50 Despite international pressure and family members including her parents, offers of aid, the military regime which siblings and grandparents, who died has ruled the country since 1976 has trying to save themselves in a obstructed many of the efforts to help warehouse. They were clinging to the its people. The Burmese government walls when the building was blown away has promised the United Nations and the tidal waves consumed them. Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon that it They were swept away by floods which would speed up the bureaucracy which have devastated the region, leaving is keeping foreign aid workers out of the some 78,000 people dead, 56,000 Irrawaddy Delta, but agencies still missing and over two million in need of report delays. The junta has insisted Food distribution chain food, water, medicine and shelter, that its response to the natural disaster according to United Nations estimates. has been prompt, but UN reports say Hurricane Katrina, which wrought havoc that only a quarter of the people in need in the United States in 2005, claimed have received food and water while fewer than 2,000 lives. One of our aid another 200,000 are struggling to [Reproduced with the kind worker’s relatives survived the survive. There have been reports of permission of The Catholic onslaught and came to Rangoon for malaria outbreaks, and much of the help. Thanks to her , she could work that will have to be done is sanita - Herald, London. First secure a car with medical supplies for tion and disease control. published 13 June 2008.] her surviving family member who returned to Labutta to give those bodies In the midst of all this political back and that could be found a decent funeral. forth Malteser International, the chari - In the meantime, she and her husband table arm of the Order of Malta, has have placed their house in Labutta at been on the ground since before the the disposal of internally displaced cyclone hit. It has been one of the few persons. Despite her heartbreak and international aid agencies which has her loss she is able to soldier on, and operated in Burma since 2001 and has continues her work for Malteser subsequently circumvented the ban on International. Others have not been so foreign aid workers in the region by lucky. using some 45 trained Burmese staff

38 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA Thousands swept away by devastating floods _ following Cyclone Nargis, leaving 78,000 people dead, _ 56,000 missing, over two million in need of food, water, _ medicine and shelter. _

Basic necessities distributed in the immediate aftermath of the cyclone

FOCUS 39 members. By May 11 it had managed to send the first aid convoy into the Irrawaddy Delta with well trained helpers, medical supplies and food. Birke Herzbruch, Malteser International’s Burma coordinator, says that the organisation’s long-term presence in the country has helped win the trust of the population on the ground and the trust of the government. Its offices are based in Rangoon, Burma’s former capital and also the scene of much destruction. Acting first in Rangoon, the organisation provided first aid and medical treatment and safe drinking water for 40,000 people in the poorer townships at the city’s outskirts. Labutta’s population has swelled to five times its normal size since the cyclone struck, despite the high number of fatal - ities. Over 100,000 displaced people have made their way there and have Setting up water tanks been housed in 53 camps. Malteser

Effects of the devastating cyclone Nargis

40 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA Emergency team review the day’s tasks

International has sent doctors, nurses work in the region, help out in camps But now we have permission and we and engineers out to help. Two weeks and eventually help people return to have people going down next Tuesday, ago it was able to airlift two water their villages or provide alternatives. a manager and a medical coordinator. treatment plants into the region, which Miss Herzbruch admits that they have At the moment we are working only with will keep 25,000 people alive with safe had restricted access, despite a good the staff which is in Myanmar. We need drinking water every day. The organisa - working relationship with the govern - more staff. We are in the emergency tion has two emergency health stations ment. “Initially we sent some people out phase, but we have been very fortunate in camps housing 12,000 people. In the without permission and were politely to have an understanding with the long term, they hope to continue the asked to please return to Rangoon. government in terms of a logistical capacity and that we have well-educated national staff who have been able to be present in Labutta.” The Irrawaddy Delta is Burma’s main rice growing region. Cyclone Nargis has devastated not only the houses and the infrastruc - ture, but has also destroyed the rice crops and fishing grounds. The United Nations predicts that relief efforts will have to last for at least a year so that the population in the delta region does not starve. In the meantime Malteser International continues to work tire - lessly, doing the best it can under the circumstances. When our pregnant Burmese aid worker gives birth in July, her child will carry something of her parents’ genetic makeup in it; it is a source of hope for her and her husband.

Anna Arco Top priority: safe drinking water

FOCUS 41 IMMIGRANTS LANDED ON ITALIAN COASTS IN 2008: Lampedusa 37,000 WOMEN LANDED ON LAMPEDUSA Where north and south meet IN 2008: 3,500 THOSE WHO WENT MISSING IN THE CHANNEL IN 2008: 580

The Order’s Italian hat hits you the most Melone, presenting his men. “I am is their young eyes honoured to meet you”, replies the Emergency Corps in aid to filled with fear. Eyes Grand Master, who asks them to stand immigrant boat people. that have looked easy while he thanks them for their W death in the face, exceptional service. before them, in the sea, at night, in a rubber dinghy. After Between April and October 2008, the five days at sea, unable to move, without volunteer doctors, nurses and para - food or water, 25 souls crammed in a medics of the Corps embarked on the boat no longer than five metres. Coast Guard’s boats at Lampedusa, giving medical assistance at sea to more It is just midnight when the motor than 2,500 immigrants in desperate launch CP 407 Lolini of the Italian Coast condition. Guard arrives in the port of Lampedusa, doctors and nurses of the Order of Dozens of children, including the Malta Italian Emergency Corps abroad. newborn, have been assisted as well as Four hours earlier they have intercepted numerous pregnant women, in many the boat of these clandestine immi - dramatic cases at serious risk of giving grants attempting to reach Lampedusa, birth on board. The most frequent a tiny island between Sicily and Africa. problems have been dehydration and A world of frontiers – the place where malnutrition, chemical burns, Lampedusa port: north and south meet. The island’s sunstroke, injuries from falls and cuts Grand Master with Coast Guard 6,000 inhabitants have witnessed the and grazes of varying seriousness, arrival, between January and October as well as many cases of scabies. 2008, of over 23,000 immigrants. They Italian Emergency Corps are Nigerians, Egyptians, Eritreans, and The 25 new arrivals are exhausted, The Italian Emergency Corps - CISOM people from the Ivory Coast, Cameroon, suffering from exposure, hands and feet - has almost 2,800 volunteers Ethiopia, Somalia, the Sudan. It is saturated with the water, sump oil and (medical personnel, paramedics and impossible to be sure how many have urine swilling around in the bottom of first-aiders) in North, Center and survived this horrific journey – but many the boat. Many cannot stand. South Italy. Founded in 1970, their bodies have been found in the sea. Two need to be put immediately into an focus has always been emergency aid ambulance. But they are alive. They to those afflicted by natural disasters. In the port, Fra’ Matthew Festing, Grand have been lucky: a fishing boat spotted In 2007, the President of the Order’s Master of the Order of Malta, awaits the them and called the Coast Guard. Italian Association, Fausto Solaro del arrival of this latest boat. He has come Dr.Varisano, an Order of Malta Borgo, being responsible for the to meet the immigrants, the civic volunteer, attends them at once, putting Emergency Corps, signed an authorities and the armed forces, men up a drip for one, stitching a deep gash agreement with the Commandant and women of the Order of Malta Italian for another, while the boat rocks in a General of the Coast Guard, Admiral Emergency Corps. He greets them all, Force Four gale. Luciano Dassatti. complimenting them on this most After disembarking they are taken to the First day of activity: 27 April 2008. difficult work which they carry out with First Aid Centre on the island, where First location: Lampedusa. such devotion. “These are the real they are checked, fed, photographed, heroes,” says Vice Admiral Vincenzo their fingerprints taken. Outside, there

42 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA is a long queue for the telephone to without money, sometimes hitch hiking, The 25 new arrivals are _ reassure those at home. or going on foot, across deserts, to exhausted, suffering _ The Grand Master stops to speak with escape from hunger, war, hardship. the immigrants and learn their stories. from exposure, _ He asks every single one, and every one He has words for each, of comfort, replies. The moment is intense; many of solidarity. When he leaves, he is hands and feet saturated _ are tearful. They speak of their journeys farewelled with a sustained applause. full of hope, started many months Eyes full of suffering, but of gratitude, with the water… _ before. The way has been full of difficul - too. But they are alive. _ ties – moving from place to place, sometimes in error, almost always

Boat people get emergency aid from the Order’s medical team: a night like many others in the Mediterranean

FOCUS 43 Belgium Project La Fontaine shelters the homeless

Care for homeless people veryone who comes to where they can go to have some soup La Fontaine has lived a or a cup of coffee and exchange a few is a growing problem, drama,” Martine Jonet, words with other like souls, or with the even in Europe. Hospitaller of the Belgian Order’s volunteer staffers. “In the “E Association summarises babble of languages we try to listen to The Order has a special what she has found in 13 everyone, seeking to give help or advice tradition of helping the most years running this organisation of the for the most simple or the most Order in Brussels. “People of every complex problems,” continues the marginalised in society. nationality, race or age, united by the Hospitaller. One of the greatest common tragedy of being forced to live problems for homeless people is on the streets.” isolation, which can be utterly La Fontaine offers the homeless the destroying. possibility of a shower, a haircut, a medical check if needed, use of the And in the Babelkot on a rainy February washing machines, or new clothes when day, the Grand Master of the Order, necessary. But above all, they seek the Fra’ Matthew Festing, comes to see the comfort of the ‘Babelkot’ – the room centre’s activities for himself. On an official visit to Brussels, where he met with leaders of the European Union and the European Parliament, he did not want to miss the opportunity of this important visit to La Fontaine. Having toured the centre, he stops to speak with guests and volunteers alike. To the latter, the Grand Master has a special message: “To help the most needy, the most marginalised in society is part of the Order’s mission. To help these people find again their self- esteem, to try to give them hope in the future, contribute to their returning to the social fabric, as you are doing – this is truly a valuable work.”

The President of the Belgian Association, Baudoin de Merode, together with Martine Jonet and Antoine d’Hoop, Director of the Centre, reveal the statistics: an average of 47 guests per day, for a total of 18,000 presences annually. The homeless are cared for by two employees and over 60 volunteers Grand Master in conversation with a La Fontaine guest who work in daily groups of 10. “Some

44 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA of our volunteers have been with us One of the greatest _ since our inauguration day 13 years ago, problems for homeless _ giving continuous service. It is a work that really enters your blood, you feel people is isolation, _ absolutely compelled to help your fellow man,” affirms de Merode. which can be _ The Belgian Association of the Order utterly destroying. _ has run a similar centre in Liège for 10 years and has plans to open another in Ghent.

Volunteers of the Belgian Association organise laundry – a much appreciated service for those living in the streets

FOCUS 45 worldwide medical, health and social welfare activities

46 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA The Order’s work stretches and for those suffering from north to south and from disease, hunger, across the world. It provides homelessness. first aid and first aid It is the mission of its training, basic health care, members to care for those in vaccination programmes, need – as important today care for terminally ill as it was 900 years ago, as patients, for AIDS victims these regional reports testify.

WORLDWIDE MEDICAL, HEALTH AND SOCIAL WELFARE ACTIVITIES 47 Order’s Projects

Annual Order International Summer Camp for disabled youth – held in 2007 in are underway Switzerland, 2008 in Austria, in Spain 2009. Over 450 participants from 20 in 120 countries countries join it every year.

Oakland, California: Order health clinic set up in Christ the Light Cathedral Centre to treat the uninsured. The staff - volunteers doctors, nurses and auxiliaries - give free assistance to anyone who comes.

Switzerland

North America California, Oakland Spain A wide range of social programmes underpins the Order’s activities in the United States, Canada and Mexico. Social and community work is high profile, with a developing project in prison ministry and reconstruction Haiti projects after Hurricane Katrina. Support for the Hôpital Throughout the year, ongoing activities Sacré Coeur in rural Haiti; volunteer medical teams include home visits to the sick house - come on a regular basis.

bound, transport for the elderly, shelter Emergency relief measures houses for single mothers and women and reconstruction after the 2010 earthquake. who have suffered domestic violence,

drug programmes for young people and community projects.

South America Present in 26 countries in the region, assistance after natural catastrophes, Support for a Dialysis Centre and construction of centre for which have left disease and destruction terminal cancer patients in El Alto, Bolivia El Alto, Bolivia. Cooperation in their wake is an important activity. on the Altiplano Chuno Project The Order’s emergency aid services (potato growing to reduce hunger and poverty of native provide first aid, temporary shelter and communities). food for victims. On a regular care basis,

there are hospices for orphans, for the poor elderly, treatment for sufferers of

leprosy, diabetes, cancer.

Also underway: programmes for street

children, for HIV positive mothers and infants, for the homeless, and for handi - capped children in rural areas as well

as soup kitchens for the poor in urban areas.

48 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA Africa With activities in over 30 countries,

the Order’s projects here concentrate on care for HIV positive mothers and

infants, on treatment for malaria, tuber - culosis, on providing clean water facili -

ties and health and psycho-sociological care to women victims of violence. The Order runs health centres and dispensaries in many rural areas, treats leprosy sufferers and trains them in income-generating activities, and cares for internally displaced persons fleeing Earthquake in Abruzzo, Italy: famine or civic conflict. with thousands left homeless, the Order’s Italian Relief Corps set up tents for 1000 Europe and provided 2000 meals and health assistance daily in the Problems of displaced persons, immi - immediate aftermath. grants, the handicapped, the homeless, Austria palliative care, the elderly sick and the young with drug addiction dominate Abruzzo programmes in Europe. The Order also provides training programmes for first- aiders, health education training, medical and social care services in remote rural areas and underprivileged Bethlehem inner city environments, runs hospitals, Thai/Myanmar old people’s homes, transport for the border disabled, meals on wheels services, rehabilitation and day care centres, Since 1993 Malteser Interna - tional has a health project for including special centres for 33,000 Karen and Burmese refugees in two camps at the Alzheimer’s sufferers and a number

Thai-Myanmar border, provi- ding health care and training of first-aid and emergency corps who the refugees to become provide support after natural or civic health staff in the camps. disasters. The Holy Family Hospital in Bethlehem, the only maternity hospital and the Asia / Middle East only neonatal intensive care unit in the region. In Asia the Order cares for leprosy Each year over 3,000 babies sufferers, treats eye cataracts, supports are born here. orphan children, cares for refugees, provides emergency aid after natural

disasters and civil conflicts.

Sydney In the Middle East, health centres, dispensaries and mobile units in rural

South Africa areas are high on the list of activities; Order works in support of the the Order also runs a maternity hospital drug and alcohol (non-medical) detoxification unit, Gorman in Bethlehem. House, in Sydney, Australia. This inner city facility cares for some of Sydney’s most Australia marginalised people - over 1,500 admissions annually. Palliative care is a specialism, language

Blessed Gerard Hospice schools for immigrant children, home cares for HIV-AIDS positive visits to the elderly, care for the poor, mothers and infants in support for addicts and the homeless, Mandeni, part of Zululand, South Africa, where 88% of help for handicapped children and the population carry the orphans. disease.

WORLDWIDE MEDICAL, HEALTH AND SOCIAL WELFARE ACTIVITIES 49 Europe

n , the growing number of volunteers in the Malteser Ndihmon ne Shqiperi (MNSH) continues to expand their range of I social, medical and emergency relief operations – particularly among impoverished communities in the north of the country.

Initiatives such as summer camps and school visits are helping to reduce street begging among Roma children, while the volunteers also provide educational and vocational training for girls and women from poor families. Transport and home visits are also provided for older people and for those of all ages who have been abandoned by their families, either through disability or poverty.

A rapid intervention team of nurses and paramedics, established in 2006, has International Summer Camp for Disabled Youth, now in its 26th year been in action several times – most recently to help evacuate people injured In response to a request from the Sovereign Council and the Austrian in an explosion at a munitions depot Albanian Ministry of Education, first-aid Federal President and the President of near Tirana. courses have been introduced for attended the anniversary event. students at a number of schools in the The service has 380 regular volunteers, MNSH’s main project, however, Shkoder and Lezhe areas. This follows 1100 part-time volunteers, and 60 continues to be the provision of medical the delivery of similar courses to medical doctors offering temporary services to more than 5,000 people members of the police and fire services services. living in extreme poverty in the remote in several northern towns. mountainous area of northern Albania In 2007 MHDA provided medical services where the collapse of socialism left As a result of this work, and several during the Pope’s three-day visit to them with no doctors, no pharmacies, other ongoing projects, MNSH has Austria as the leading first aid organisa - no ambulance service and no money established itself as a significant tion. MHDA organised also a pilgrimage to buy medicines. provider of health and social services with handicapped to Mariazell during to vulnerable groups in Albania. the visit of , where 120 Volunteers from the Order are now helpers accomplished more than 2,000 providing health education training The Austrian Grand Priory’s hospitaller hours of dedicated work. In the Jubilee as well as regular medical visits and division – Malteser Hospitaldienst year 2008 130 helpers and 180 handi - emergency transport to hospitals. Austria (MHDA) celebrated its 50th capped were on the Order’s train to In 2007 alone, more than 2,800 people anniversary in 2007. The Grand Lourdes. were helped in this way. Chancellor, many members of the

50 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA 2008 saw Austria host the Order’s children’s homes, schools and hospitals training for volunteers to assist in care annual International Summer Camp for in four regions (Gomel, Mogilev, Vitebsk for the sick and disabled; pilgrimages to disabled youth, held in Stams, Tyrol, and Grodno) and to donate much needed Lourdes and to Banneux with the handi - attracting funding from the European medical equipment. Additionally, in 2009 capped; spring and autumn weekends Union's 'Youth in Action' programme; shipments of clothes from have for special needs children and their 500 young people from 20 countries helped the poor in parishes in Minsk. families and young Malte Assistance attended. A total of 96,000 hours of volunteers. voluntary service was provided by the The Order’s work in Belgium includes Grand Priory and its organisations in caring for some 18,000 homeless people Abroad: the Association supports three 2007 – a contribution which continued to each year at its ‘La Fontaine’ centres in missions in the Democratic Republic of grow throughout 2008. Brussels and Liege. In 2009, the houses Congo and gives financial aid to the Holy took care of 17,400 homeless = 12,000 Family Hospital, Bethlehem. First aid at events: in June 2008 the showers, 12,100 laundry, 5,700 visits to MHDA provided first aid cover for the the infirmary. 130 Order volunteers Much-needed medical equipment, food European Football Championships in ('Malte Assistance') gave them support and clothing have been donated by Vienna, Salzburg and Innsbruck, and care, focusing on the hundreds of Order’s Embassy in since its amounting to 386 Order volunteers over homeless and providing basic help, a establishment in 2005. the 23 days, doing 21,000 hours of duty medical checkup, haircut, clean laundry, (average 906 hrs / day), plus 141 a shower. Six echograph machines for the early German Malteserhilfsdienst (MHD) detection of cancer symptoms have so members. Volunteers also provide palliative care far been given to separate hospitals, for patients, including those suffering while many consignments of food and 2008-2009: Current projects include the from multiple sclerosis, at two centres, clothing have been delivered to care running of a residential home, Haus the Albert I and Queen Elizabeth homes for elderly people, with toys, Malta, for elderly and sick people, Institute and the Saint-Luc University clothing and educational equipment ownership of an elementary school in clinic. provided for young orphans. Mailberg, and the provision of nursing services and support for people From 2009: team members of Malte The Embassy has also provided an diagnosed with HIV and AIDS. Assistance offer the Brevet European ambulance for the King Ferdinand First Aid Certificate (BEPS) and Hospital for Pulmonary Diseases in Abroad: In 2007 and 2008 Grand Priory specialised courses for the carers of Iskretz and a number of cardiac defibril - volunteers collected and distributed people with disabilities or long-term lators have also been donated to medicines worth € 4.3 million to illnesses. Ongoing activities include hospitals. Afghanistan, , Moldavia, Iraq, Iran and Lebanon, and donated urgently-needed clothing, bicycles, sewing machines and household equipment to children’s and old people’s homes in Romania and Moldavia.

In the Order established diplo - matic relations in 1996 and since then has given considerable aid to alleviate the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster, including arranging annual trips abroad for treatment for 40 children from Chernobyl. Malta Belgium International organised training courses for Belarus doctors in paediatric nephrology and facial surgery, as well as seminars in paediatric nephrology by a Belgian University Professor.

The Embassy has worked with Malta Belgium International to distribute medicines and medical supplies to French President Nicolas Sarkozy visits the Order’s Alzheimer’s Centre in Nice

WORLDWIDE MEDICAL, HEALTH AND SOCIAL WELFARE ACTIVITIES 51 provided in 10 countries for people suffering from leprosy or AIDS.

In France itself, Ordre de Malte France runs 13 centres providing help, medical care and meals to homeless people, while two houseboats on the River Seine act as shelters and job centres for many homeless in Paris. In 2008, the Fleuron St. Jean saw 960 different passengers, totalling 16,000 overnight stays, with 10 aid workers and 150 volunteers; the Fleuron St. Michel has been operating since September 2008.

In France, the organisation has 11 Day care centre in Rome hospitals/institutions for rehabilitation, the treatment of physical handicaps, Since its foundation in May 2002, the the disabled; personal assistance autism, mental handicaps and Order’s humanitarian and charitable aid (Middle region-Melnik) to Alzheimer patients (500 beds). organisation in the , develop self-sufficiency if aged or ill; Maltezska Pomoc (Malteser Aid), and transport of children with disabilities Volunteers also help to care for asylum through the Grand Priory of Bohemia, (Middel Bohemia-Melnik) to special facil - seekers by offering not only moral has expanded its provision of social care ities, schools, social welfare institutions. support, but also medical supplies and services to cover 12 major cities, with access to education for children. 320 permanent volunteers, 200 occa - A separate group of 74 volunteers, sional. It seeks to help those who would including 10 doctors, provides first-aid Meanwhile, Ordre de Malte France’s otherwise fall through the gaps in care services at large public events. In 2007, medical supplies programme provided a provision. Maltezska Pomoc (Maltese for example, the unit was in action at lifeline to 18 developing countries by Aid) has centres in 10 Czech cities to the Czech International Air Festival as collecting and distributing medicines provide social services to the needy. well as at a number of rock festivals, and medical equipment. In 2008 alone Its wide-ranging programme of projects sports events and pilgrimages. In 2008 this service delivered 54 tonnes of is directed at those who are injured, the first aid unit helped 650 patients at medicines, as well as 18 tonnes of housebound, lonely, elderly, or affected 30 events. Also in 2008, new services medical supplies, 51 tonnes of nutri - by natural disasters. Care covers day covered personal assistance to the tional foods and 18,000 pairs of care and clubs for seniors; supply of elderly; a correspondence with spectacles. medicaments to the needy; home visits prisoners without family links (Olomouc, and household help for the elderly and Brno) and at the international Meeting In 2008, 430 first aiders operated in infirm; inpatient hospital / nursing home of Wheelchair Users, Velehrad, wheel - 1,340 assistance stands (including care. In addition, the organisation’s 520 chair users were escorted by 80 Maltese services for the Papal visit and the volunteers also run camps for children Aid volunteers. Lourdes International Pilgrimage). from deprived families. In France , the Order’s French With 1,300 employees and 16,000 volun - For all of these needy people, Maltezska Association, through its hospitaller teers – 5,000 of whom are full time – Pomoc provides not only friendly and service – the Association des Oeuvres Ordre de Malte France also plays a compassionate human contact but also Hospitalieres Francaises de l’Ordre de significant role in first-aid provision and access to medical care and donations of Malte (OHFOM), usually known as Ordre training around the country. Almost one basic food and clothing, as well as free de Malte France – has four highly active in three of the country’s ambulance transport to special schools, care national programmes for healthcare, personnel are trained in one of the centres and hospitals. It has set up social care, medical service and Association’s four schools (Paris, Brest, social activation services for seniors and training. Its overseas medical, care and Toulon, Bordeaux). In 2008 they awarded the disabled - in Prague, Hradec humanitarian activities are also broad- 330 ambulance driver diplomas and 199 Kralove, Karlovy Vary, Melnik, Brno, ranging both in type and geographical certificates of ambulance medical auxil - Olomoue, Uherske Hradiste, Ceska Lipa; cover – with hospitals in 16 countries, iaries. In their 32 First Aid schools, a aid for Alzheimer's and dementia dispensaries and healthcare centres in workplace first-aid training service as patients; integration work; transport for another 11 countries, and medical care well as a ‘train the trainers’ programme

52 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA is offered. In 2008, 1,800 first aiders and plans to introduce hospices for clinics for naturopathy, residential were trained in 207 sessions, with 31 in young people and children, as well as a homes for the elderly, hospices and training for first aid rescue at work. palliative care service which will enable palliative care services, and ambulance more terminally ill to be looked after in care services. Around 6,000 employees The many management, support and their own homes. look after 100,000 patients each year in training actions abroad are carried out over 30 institutions. Also part of in francophone African countries, as This will echo the continuing work Malteser Germany is Malteser Werke. well as in Palestine, Syria, the Lebanon, of the Malteser Hilfsdienst (MHD), Since 1989, it has developed core Iraq, Cambodia and India, . the Association’s emergency corps, in competences in the fields of youth work, creating security for elderly people who schooling, social services, family, Working with the terminally ill has been live at home on their own. Founded in migration and health care. Malteser a tradition spanning several decades for 1953, the corps has developed exponen - Werke offers social and educational the German Association , whose German tially and today MHD aid covers support advice in 34 institutions across Malteser Family has divided its areas of for the elderly at home, ambulatory Germany. activity into civil protection and social care, mobile social services, meal services. In 2008, there were 35,700 delivery services, home emergency call Malteser Medical Facilities for Migrants active volunteers, 12,139 professionals service, supervised living, transportation (MMM) saw a great influx in 2008 among and 978,000 supporting members for a and a repatriation service. those without resident status or health broad range of activities countrywide as insurance, providing preliminary well as abroad. The activities across the Over 170 visiting and accompanying medical check-ups or emergency care. year amounted to 7.4 million hours of services with more than 1,900 volun - Present in 11 major cities, over 20,000 voluntary work at 700 locations. teers cared for 17,628 elderly, sick, patients have been helped and over 700 The German Association runs 10 suffering and disabled people, totalling pregnancies delivered since 2001. hospitals, 22 residential homes for the 225,000 voluntary hours of work. elderly, 26 residential homes for youth The Association’s foreign aid organisa - work and drug addiction treatment Another branch of the Association tion, meanwhile, has an active presence and 8 houses for asylum seekers. provides specialised social and educa - in 26 countries, in particular in Central In 2008, a total of 2,282 hospice workers tional advice to more than 20 institu - and Eastern Europe. helped to care for almost 7,000 termi - tions across Germany. First-aid training nally ill people. The Association provides is also widely provided. In Great Britain , the Order – as one of permanent services for people in two partners in the Orders of St John mourning at 13 locations in Germany, Malteser hospitals offer specialised Care Trust (OSJCT) – has been playing an increasingly important role in supporting the Department of Health in providing end-of-life care for elderly people in their own homes.

Initiatives include ‘My Home Life’, a collaborative programme aimed at improving the quality of life for those who are living, dying, visiting and working in care homes for older people. All OSJCT homes now actively embrace the ethos of ‘My Home Life’.

Through its participation in OSJCT, the Order’s British Association is involved in the care of 3,300 residents in care homes for the elderly and has ambitious plans to increase this.

More than £24million has already been invested in the building of six new homes over the past four years, and six more are planned for 2010 at a cost of a The Prince of Wales greets a resident at an Order home for the elderly in England further £135million. The Isis Care and

WORLDWIDE MEDICAL, HEALTH AND SOCIAL WELFARE ACTIVITIES 53 Aid in natural disasters is a task trained Order teams perform

Retirement Centre opened in Oxford in eight London boroughs). Mexico, Blessed Gerard orphanage and 2007 with 60 nursing care beds, 20 resi - clinic in Mandeni, South Africa, Holy dential care beds and 20 extra care A strong, inspiring young group - the Family Hospital, Bethlehem; CIOMAL apartments. This was followed in 2008 Order of Malta Volunteers (OMV) (ages leprosy programmes; meals-on-wheels by the opening of a new home in between 17 and 29) - concentrates on project in Romania; Malmesbury, Wiltshire, with 40 nursing accompanying the sick to Lourdes and (St Petersburg); and Malteser care beds and 40 residential care beds on weekend breaks for the handicapped International's emergency relief work as well as 28 two-bedroom extra-care throughout the year, and organises its in Democratic Republic of Congo, apartments. own fundraising for these projects. The in combatting HIV and TB in slums of OMV will host the International Summer Nairobi, Kenya, in Burma after cyclone The Association’s work in palliative care Camp for disabled youth in 2010. Nargis. In 2008 over £150,000 was was further enhanced by the opening of raised for these projects. new consulting rooms at the Hospital of The recently formed Companions of the St John and St Elizabeth in London, as Order of Malta is an auxiliary organisa - The Hungarian Maltese Charity Service well as a new Day Services Centre in the tion focused in three areas: care homes, (Magyar Maltai Szeretetszolgalat) was adjoining St John’s Hospice (the only hospices, and the British Association’s founded in 1989. Known as MMSZ, it is independent hospice in central London, Foreign Aid Service (FAS), which the relief organisation of the Sovereign it treats terminally ill patients free of fundraises for Order projects abroad: Order of Malta, and an autonomous charge, on a day care basis, and covers mother-to-baby HIV transmission in legal entity in the Hungarian legal

54 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA system. It is the country’s largest The MMSZ Rescue Team for victims of first-aid services at major public events provider of social care. Its three foci are natural disasters has provided flood by the Order of Malta Ambulance Corps. traditional charitable activities, with 142 support in Hungary and other countries The Order of Malta Cadets, meanwhile, voluntary groups (collection and distri - of the Carpathian Basin and in South- continue to organise youth development bution of donations, mostly in kind); East Asia. Its medical group has worked programmes and sporting activities for running social and healthcare institu - in Pakistan and on the island of Java. young people throughout the island tions; development and implementation Medical aid supplies went to Lebanon, of Ireland. of special programmes and social policy to the Order’s Holy Family Hospital in strategies. Bethlehem and to Ramallah hospital. The 80-person day care centre in Drogheda remains the Order’s largest Traditional activities: Annual distribution In 2009 the MMSZ, celebrating its 20th single project in Ireland. It provides a of donations of around € 2 m. In 2008 anniversary, sees its next targets as range of activities and programmes this meant help for 159,000 needy. more support for the needy, reinforcing individually tailored to the needs of With a supermarket chain, the MMSZ and expanding the donor base and people with a range of intellectual, collected 140 tons of food. In the same creating strategic partnerships. physical and sensory disabilities. year they helped nearly 200 social, healthcare and education institutions. The Order of Malta Ireland has Thanks to the intervention of the 18 full- MMSZ’s 12,000 volunteers gave over continued to provide an extensive range time staff, many of the centre’s clients 600,000 hours in 2007-2008. of community services throughout 2007, have been able to move into mainstream 2008 and 2009. These have included day employment. Others have continued to Institutional care: MMSZ runs 8 homes care and supper clubs for older people, take part in literacy and numeracy for the elderly, 6 day-time centres, the provision of holidays for people with classes as well as in sports including 7 home support services. For the disabilities and respite holidays for golf, archery and swimming, and in homeless, care includes: 10 residential carers at the Order of Malta Centre in developing life skills such as cooking, facilities, 13 day-time centres, 4 street Lisnaskea, Northern Ireland, as well washing and organic gardening. work services. For the disabled: as participation in the Order’s annual 35 support services, 3 homes, 5 day- International Camp for Young Disabled In 2007, 250,000 volunteer hours were time centres, 3 services for sign People. given to the Ambulance Corps. In 2008 language interpretation. Family welfare this figure was surpassed. In 2009 new and child protection: 5 homes, 19 family First-aid remained a strong focus Advanced Leadership courses for young help services, 13 playgrounds, a foster throughout 2007, 2008 and 2008 - both cadets have been launched. The Irish parent network. Care for addicts and in the workplace training courses Order of Malta Ambulance Corps is the community services. Plus 4 soup provided by Order of Malta Training first organisation in the voluntary sector kitchens, 3 farm caretaker services, Services, and through the provision of to have accreditation to teach a first aid 13 prison ministry services. Healthcare includes an ambulance service, rentals for medical appliances, a mobile clinic, mobile pulmonary screening station, healthcare centres, medical practices, a vocational school for nursing training, a nursing home, a hospital. Around 6,500 needy persons are cared for by MMSZ daily.

Special programmes: Prevention by Playing to break the link between teenage boredom and criminality; a Host Village programme of social inte - gration and multi-purpose aid for Roma and homeless families; a Housing and Social Integration programme to promote the integration of Roma quarters in towns; and Employment for the Homeless a laundry in Budapest, run by ten homeless people, hired and trained for the purpose. Order of Malta soup kitchens for the elderly poor function in Central and Eastern Europe

WORLDWIDE MEDICAL, HEALTH AND SOCIAL WELFARE ACTIVITIES 55 standard that leads to a professional dead, more than 1,400 injured, 64,000 which the members of the Order of emergency care qualification. homeless. Their services continue for Malta and volunteers run in various Order of Malta Ireland also continues its many months as the rehabilitation parishes in Rome. There are the elderly humanitarian and medical work phase, in both psychological and recon - who consult the volunteer lawyers about overseas, including two projects in struction terms is long. their disability pension; parents of Islamic countries – the rebuilding of a CISOM has been hosting 700 people, children with mental disorders who village medical and social centre in providing them with meals, health care request psychological assistance; the Lebanon, and the provision of Irish and spiritual succour, assisted by volun - unemployed seeking help to pay elec - medical professionals to work with and teers from the Austrian and German tricity and gas bills and kindergarten help to train staff at the Holy Family Associations. fees; single mothers collecting their Hospital, Bethlehem. parcels of nappies and baby food. Following the earthquake that devas - In Italy the Order is active through its tated the Abruzzo region, the Grand Further afield, the Italian Association three Grand Priories and its Association. Priory of Lombardy and Venice partici - provides help in rehabilitation of The Order’s Italian Association pated in the aid operations for the sufferers at Abu Zabal Leprosy Hospital (ACISMOM) runs a 220 bed hospital in victims and provided food for distribu - near Cairo, Egypt and a day clinic for eye Rome with a neuro-rehabilitation unit tion in the camps run by the Italian First treatment in Shabra district. The Italian for cerebral trauma patients; 11 centres Aid Corps of the Order (CISOM). The Association also coordinates fundraising for diagnosis and treatment of diabetes Priory’s Delegations have continued for a secondary school for girls in the (45,000 patients per annum); a Relief their support in the care centres which Rumbek diocese of Sudan. Corps (CISOM) of 2,000 volunteers for are still working in the area. Civil Protection services; and a Military In Latvia , an assistance project in the Medical Corps which cooperates with The Grand Priory of Naples provides City of Soest is centred on the donating, the Italian Armed Forces. In a coopera - support accommodation for parents collecting and distributing of medical tion agreement with the Italian Coast of chronically ill children needing equipment and basic necessities. Guard, CISOM provides emergency regular treatment in Naples, a project In 2007 and 2008 this amounted to 50 services to illegal immigrants - established since 2007. tons. Current plans include a project for currently on Lampedusa (see article a childrens home in Aglona, to support page 42). Hundreds of destitute people, 90% street children from the area. The Relief Corps and the Military Italian plus a minority of foreigners, are Medical Corps were among the first on assisted every year in the ten In the Order’s Auxiliary the ground when an earthquake community centres and four family Service (MOPT), which was established measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale hit guidance units that the Grand Priory of in 1991, plays an important role in the the Abruzzo region, leaving over 300 Rome opened over twenty years ago and country’s social services provision.

The Order’s 30 ambulance corps operate in emergency situations in Europe and Africa

56 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA Pope Benedict XVI visits the Order’s San Giovanni Battista hospital in Rome

Operating on a national level, it works in engage or extend in social sponsorship – a retired medical doctor and his wife – more than 20 institutions to distribute in Lithuania. Services include volunteer travel to the country and spend two food, clothing and medicine to elderly training, public relations, fundraising. months each year holding clinics in 16 people, children and those with neighbouring villages and hamlets. handicaps. It provides meals on wheels, Patients receiving chemotherapy and Since 2000, they have provided a vitally soup kitchens, supports social and radiotherapy at the Sir Paul Boffa needed medical service to people who medical institutions, and has created Hospital in , Malta , are being would otherwise have no access to a and supports youth groups. helped to feel less stressed and more at doctor and no money to pay for ease thanks to daily visits by volunteers medicines. 2008 saw MOPT with 32 branches in from the island’s Friends of the Order of 22 cities, 430 volunteers and a youth Malta organisation. The volunteers also In 2008 Association services included organisation of 400 members in 20 provide a refreshment trolley service at regular visits to detention centres for cities. There is a focus on children, with the hospital, with an average of 400 migrants, providing clothing and basic day care centres in four major cities, meals per week. On the Island of Gozo, necessities. The service has been providing meals, teaching and the the sick and elderly are visited on a extended in 2009. possibility to play games. They also join regular basis, and basic necessities are Lithuanian radio and television person - provided. In the , the Order’s alities in an annual nationwide initiative Association runs an annual summer under which hot meals are distributed Abroad, the Association distributes camp for adults who have physical to homeless and needy people in the medicines and clothing to Ethiopia and disabilities. With their needs often over - country’s six largest cities during the donates to the Dioceses of Malindi and looked by other organisations, they three days before Christmas. Garissa (run by Maltese ), spend a week in beautiful surroundings in Northern Kenya. Meanwhile, two and with the company of 15 volunteers. Although mainly volunteers provide the members of the Maltese Association, services of MOPT, the professional head Stephen and Jacqueline Vassallo, Annual camps are also organised for office in Vilnius and five regional offices continue to run a medical clinic they children in two age groups, each make MOPT an ideal provider of social established eight years ago in the providing a week’s activities led by older services for companies seeking to village of Azulco, Guatemala. The couple students.

WORLDWIDE MEDICAL, HEALTH AND SOCIAL WELFARE ACTIVITIES 57 Volunteers from the Association are involved in the management and operation of the Hospice of St John, which is the first centre in the Netherlands to provide palliative care on a 24-hour basis. In 2008, a total of 84 guests received care at the hospice, where members of the professional staff are assisted by a group of more than 80 trained volunteers.

The Polish Association continues to run Eastern Europe’s largest care centre for disabled children and their parents. Opened in Krakow in 2006, the centre aims to provide specialised care and support for up to 250 families with children who have special needs. The following year saw the opening of a pre-school for children with handicaps, as well as a medical centre to provide School pickup point: Order transport for disabled children facilities for early intervention. These new facilities supplement the day-care in Katowice which provide care for drug already grown to 90 volunteers. centre which the Association has been addicts and homeless children, as well running in Krakow for many years and as a 30-bed hospital in North East Outside its own national boundaries the which caters for more than 130 children Poland where a specialised medical Polish Association provides humani - from broken and alcohol-addicted team cares for patients in a persistent tarian aid to people in Ukraine (which families. vegetative state. included a special medical mission to remote areas of the country and supply As well as its care for children, other All volunteers in the Maltese Medical of basic medicines), Lithuania, Latvia, support services range from care for the Service (MMS), which provides medical Belarus and Kazakhstan and Georgia elderly, to patients suffering from support at large public events, receive (see above). Its Maltese Pharmacy also dementia or Alzheimer’s disease, as first aid training. In 2007, 1,860 volun - continues to provide free medication to well as domestic emergency response teers in 34 branches of the MMS those in need. services, meals on wheels, home visits attended 626 events and gave first aid and household help, and social integra - and medical treatment to 19,864 people. Volunteers from the Portuguese tion events. In 2008, 120,000 volunteer hours were Association are active in providing social clocked up, 114 first aid courses were support for people living in four care Medical aid is provided at the Specialist run, 2,000 first aiders were trained and homes, as well as medical help, Maltese Centre in Poznan, which carried 7.5 tons of aid for the needy were medicines and equipment for people out more than 2,000 mammography and distributed. In August 2008 the 12th with disabilities. Patient care and ultrasound examinations as well as Eurocamp was held at Zakrzow, near support is also given at the Oporto 1,400 densitometric examinations in Krakow, for 60 Maltese Youth who came Oncology Hospital. 2006, with increases in 2007 and 2008. from Albania, Germany, Hungary, Between 1993 and 2008, 74,330 patients Poland, Romania and Serbia to discuss The Obras Hospitalárias Portuguesas da were treated in the oncology clinic and practise first aid and life saving Ordem de Malta has two branches: the whose current medical team includes techniques. Also in 2008 the 4th first, a unit of volunteer doctors, nurses 32 physicians, all volunteers, and Summer Camp for Disabled Children and logistic personnel who provide 26 auxiliaries. The Maltese Aid Centre in took place in Szczyrzyc, with over 50 assistance for the pilgrims who walk to Puszczykowo provides day care and task participants. the Christian shrines, and the poor from therapy for people with mental disabili - Portugese-speaking countries, the ties, while a further 30 people with In 2006, Advisory Centres for the second is teams of volunteers who work moderate and severe mental difficulties disabled, aided by a small group of in institutions, care homes and prisons. attend a task therapy workshop. volunteers, were established in six cities, to provide income-generating In 2008 the Association supported care The Association also runs two centres skills. By 2008, the small group had homes in five cities, with the addition of

58 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA two in Northern Portugal, and a home for people with disabilities, and medical training has also been organised for two for orphans at Povoa de Varzim. services include the supply of medicines Serbian doctors at the University of Prison ministry also grew, with 70 as well as support for hospital patients. Pisa. inmates assisted in two prisons, at Caxias and Carregueira. The Scandinavian Association now has In Slovakia the Volunteer Corps carries members in , Finland and out welfare work including help for The Association is also active abroad in Norway. Activities include visits to needy people at eight aid centres, the supporting medical and humanitarian elderly people in residential care homes provision of soup kitchens for homeless projects in Portuguese-speaking and weekly visits to the terminally ill in people and, most recently, donations of countries. Volunteers are also regular hospices. medical equipment to the Kezmarok visitors to Guinea-Bissau, where they hospital and of defibrillators to the work with needy children in local Abroad, the Association is supporting Roma community in Olejnkovo and to primary schools. refugees outside Sarajevo and the hospital in Trencin. fundraising to support needy children in The Order’s Relief Service in Romania Tallinn, Estonia. The Order has been providing care and has more than 1,200 volunteers aid in Spain since 1108, and the Spanish providing a wide variety of medical and Medical and social care provided by the Association now maintains that tradition humanitarian aid to those in need in 26 Order’s Relief Corps in Serbia extends through a number of programmes locations. Recent activities include the across all age groups and includes aimed at helping those in need at all construction of a multifunctional youth home visits as well as the provision of stages in their lives. centre and the building of six houses specialised care centres and residential and seven water wells following severe homes. There is a transport scheme for Elderly people are cared for at a number flooding in the Tulcea region. disabled people, a nursery school for of rest homes in Madrid, where the children with special needs, and a soup Association also provides soup kitchens Work continues in providing support for kitchen for homeless people. Other for homeless people. Young people with homeless people including social services are for outpatient care, medical disabilities are catered for at an annual centres, winter crisis centres and day care provided by doctors, supplying of Summer Camp, and the Spanish centres. Medical activities include dental medicaments, home visits and Association is host for the Order’s 2009 and pharmacy services, as well as the household help for the disabled, social International Summer Camp in Segovia. provision of first-aid courses and an integration events, a day/night nursing ambulance service staffed by trained facility, assisted senior living, a Members of the Association’s volunteer volunteers. domestic emergency response service, corps provide a wide variety of aid for Alzheimer's and dementia programmes in Madrid, Cataluña, The Relief Service also cares for patients, meals on wheels. Specialist Valencia and Baleares with the focus on abandoned children and organises play programmes as part of its work in helping to integrate disadvantaged children with the wider society.

People with disabilities are also supported through services ranging from free transport to the provision of day-care and residential homes, while the elderly are offered services including meals on wheels, household help and outpatient care.

In Russia , the work of the Order is focused on medical and care provision for underprivileged sectors of the popu - lation. There are a number of day care centres as well as home visits, a meals on wheels service and household help for elderly people. A soup kitchen operates in St. Petersburg. Transport and places in care homes are provided Student and volunteer share a joke. Orphanages are a focus in Eastern Europe

WORLDWIDE MEDICAL, HEALTH AND SOCIAL WELFARE ACTIVITIES 59 Summer Camp for Children with handicaps was held in Champery and attended by more than 500 people. The 'Point d'Eau’ clinic in Lausanne continues to care for the homeless and the poor, providing medical checkups, laundry, dentist, psychological support, working in partnership with the Order of St. Jean.

Support for the needy has been also extended overseas, with a total of 980 tonnes of medicines, medical equipment, food and clothing sent to ten countries in Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East in 2008.

Clothes and food aid are provided by the Order’s volunteers in Ukraine , who also run a meals on wheels service for elderly people who are housebound, and soup kitchens in locations in the west of In Germany Malteser is one of the largest providers of emergency first aid the country for those who have no home at all. In 2008 180 meals per day were helping older people, those who are In Switzerland , volunteers from the prepared. Other social services for the homeless or displaced from their homes Swiss Hospitaller Service – now needy include day care centres and in other countries, as well as young numbering over 900 - continue their outpatient support; transport for the people affected by Down’s syndrome. broad spread of work within hospitals disabled; assistance and visiting service and medical centres, as well as in resi - for mentally handicapped children in The Spanish Association also works in dential homes for elderly and handi - institutions; the establishment of a collaboration with a number of other aid capped people, and also among sick Handicapped Rehabilitation Club where organisations, examples including young and the homeless. 30 patients are collected from their funding international training courses homes and taken to concerts, sports with Fontilles Leprosy in Alicante, In 2007 the Order’s annual International events and church summer camps. working with Nuevo Futuro to care for children lacking a normal family envi - ronment, as well as the food supplies bank, ADEVIDA, in Palma de Mallorca and Seville, and with the National Blind Organisation (ONCE) in Pamplona.

International activities include work in Equatorial Guinea, where the Association has covered the mainte - nance and improvement of the Leprosy Clinic at Mikomeseng, as well as contri - butions to the building and maintenance of a day health care centre for mental pathologies in Bata. Another recent example is the construction and equipping of a kidney disease health centre in Bolivia, where the Spanish Association worked in conjunction with the Bolivian Association of the Order as well as the AECI and the Kidney Disease Foundation. Ukraine children’s home

60 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA Americas

he medical work carried out by the Argentinian Association includes care T for HIV-positive mothers and their infants at two hospitals, with more than 1,000 mothers treated during 2007 and a further 1,000 in 2008.

The Association has donated medical and practical equipment to the intensive care unit for the neonatal intensive care ward at the Hospital de Ni ños de San Justo.

Palliative care is also provided for cancer patients in their own homes, with more than 600 being supported so far since 2001.

Support for pilgrimages is another activity, with one recent example being a pilgrimage to the Basilica of Nuestra Señora de Luján which included many terminally-ill patients from the Order’s Centre for Palliative Care.

Meanwhile CIOMAL, the International Committee of the Order of Malta against Leprosy, continues its drive to eradicate leprosy which has now entered its third phase, run in collaboration with the Food and medical equipment is distributed after natural catastrophes Universidad de Salvador, Hospital Mu ñiz and Hospital Maldomero Sommer. to facilitate the first stage of medical The Order continues to work in Bolivia , training in leprosy treatment. one of the poorest and least-developed As part of the AMAPEL (Ayuda Maltesa countries in America, not only Para Eliminar la Lepra) project, the In Belize , the USA Federal Association through its own Association which partners are supporting the National has supported a health care clinic, carries out a number of humanitarian Leprosy Programme by following-up supplying mobile communications and fund-raising activities, but also with patients to ensure that their treatment equipment and systems to facilitate the support of other Order Associations. and care is maintained. Refresher communications between the clinic and courses are also delivered to hospital the mobile unit operating in remote The Bolivian Association recently internships in various towns and cities villages. opened a new Centre for Medical

WORLDWIDE MEDICAL, HEALTH AND SOCIAL WELFARE ACTIVITIES 61 Caring for the more vulnerable members of the community forms the focus of the Canadian Association’s work. In Montreal, for example, volun - teers help to care for 1000 elderly people in six residential homes and assist pilgrims all year round at St. Joseph’s Oratory and Notre Dame du Cap, while in they run a project to help severely handicapped children.

A day clinic and a shelter for the homeless are already up and running in Ottawa, with a home for elderly people and a local Catholic high school recently added to plans for ongoing projects.

Donations have been made in Toronto to a shelter for the homeless “Out of the Cold” and for the operation of a soup kitchen, “St. Francis Table,” both run by St ’s Hospital in Toronto, where members of the Order support people with handicaps as well as the elderly and chronically ill and their carers. Additionally, the Association is providing eye clinics in Vancouver for those who fall through the cracks in the city’s social services provision and for whom this service is vital and are currently In Bolivia, the Order’s Association supports the El Alto dialysis centre establishing a project in a poor parish to help an ageing immigrant population to Investigation and Prevention of lished medical referral centres in five obtain better access to social services. Diabetes, in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, states, and has been asked by the with the support of the Spanish government to build, or help in the Abroad, the Association supports Association. In , two important rebuilding of, a total of 15 similar projects in Bolivia and Honduras. projects are the support for a dialysis centres and nine states. Each will have centre and the construction of a centre medical, technical and ambulatory In Chile , after seven years of effort, the for terminally-ill cancer patients in El equipment as well as surgery facilities. Chilean Association has finalised the Alto (La Paz), currently under develop - restoration of the St ment. Other activities include an outpatients’ church in Santiago and organises clinic providing free prescription Masses, retreats and vespers. Between 2005 and 2008, the Canadian medicines to the poor and needy in Sao After renovating and equipping the Association acted as administrators of a Paolo, a day care facility for children up respiratory departments of five public project which has sustainably reduced to the age of seven, and the Centro de hospitals and assuring the transport of poverty and hunger for 3600 people in Juventude where disadvantaged its patients, this year the Fundación farming communities through a scheme children can receive free medical and Auxilio Maltés will build a Centre for the for developing trade in a locally- dental care. Re-education of needy children with produced air-dried bitter potato known lung problems, and a Day Care Centre as Chu ňo. The project was organised by Meanwhile the leprosy control for 30 elderly persons. Following the the Canadian International Development programme run by CIOMAL in the Picos, February 2010 earthquake, teams from Association CIDA/ACDI with two Bolivian Piaui and Fiorano areas has helped to Malteser International, the Chilean partners, AGRUCO and COSUDE. reduce significantly the number of new Association and “Auxilio Maltés” have cases, particularly among the under-15 combined forces to provide emergency In Brazil , the Order’s Association of Sao age group. relief to victims. Paolo and Southern Brazil has estab -

62 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA In , the Order has added two over US$ 60,000 in hurricane relief. The Cuban Association is also active in further floors to its health centre in In 2009, in cooperation with the bishops the United States where it focuses much Barrio Palermo Sur, where it serves a of Pinar, the Embassy has projected the of its activities on undocumented immi - population of 20,000 people in a poor rebuilding of the first houses, with the grants in Miami, Florida. In San Juan area of Bogota. Elsewhere in the city, programme expected to continue over Bosco parish its volunteers operate a members of the Colombian Association many months. feeding hall that assists over 75 indigent continue to run a project which provides families. The Association also offers psychological support and occupational The state-run hospital for people children’s vaccinations, blood pressure therapy to children with educational or suffering from leprosy is also supported and sugar level screening, and other family difficulties. by the Order, both through nursing care primary care efforts at San Juan Bosco and through the provision of basic foods Parish and other locations in the Miami Meanwhile, the Order’s legal consul - and vitamins for the 100 patients the area. The Association also organises tancy provided help to 345 Colombian hospital is caring for. medical missions which in the past have families during 2007 and continued its gone throughout the Caribbean but have support work in 2008, while medicines donated by AmeriCares were distributed to more than 40 institutions in 2008.

In addition to offering voluntary help to hospitals, clinics and residential homes for elderly people, the Association also runs a number of mobile medical units which send needy patients for treatment in Bogota.

The Order opened a new embassy in Cuba at the beginning of 2008 to afford a focal point for the expanding social and cultural activities in the country. The purpose is to build on the work of the Cuban Association which includes the assistance provided through 40 ‘comedores populares’ or adult day care centres which operate within the various institutions of the Church throughout the island.

Hurricane Ike struck Cuba in September 2008, leaving chaos in its wake, in the east especially, where heavy flooding and rains caused severe damage not only to 500,000 houses, but also to the infrastructure - electricity, roads, railways and agriculture. The Order’s Embassy immediately acted in assessing the damage, then consulting with the Bishop of Pinar and organising a large container of food and basic necessities to go to the needy in the dioceses of Pinar del Rio. Volunteers prepared over 1,300 packages with food, clothes and soap for distribution in the city of Las Pozas, with a further consignment of bedding and medicines to the badly damaged Hospital in San Cristobal. The Cuban Association sent Donation of medical equipment is one of the activities in South America

WORLDWIDE MEDICAL, HEALTH AND SOCIAL WELFARE ACTIVITIES 63 20,000 patients since 2004, with more than half of the visits for children. The doctors estimate that hundreds of these children have never been examined by a physician. Over $400,000 medicines have been donated, including more than 110,000 anti-parasite treat - ments provided to children and 18 “Health Promoters” have been trained, to educate women on health, hygiene, and nutrition.

In El Salvador the local Association operates 9 support clinics to help the poor and the needy, and also runs a programme of importing and distrib - uting medicines and medical equipment. The Cuban Association supports the university hospital in El Salvador for training of nurses and paramedics and donates medical machines.

In 2008 the Guatemalan Association distributed medicines, clothing and health kits to 2.5 million people with low economic means. After severe floods, it sent a medical team, two mobile clinics, Volunteer medical team from Miami treats patients in a rural clinic, Dominican Republic clothing and shoes to aid efforts in Camotán and Jocotán. Together with recently centred on the Dominican and development and nutritional evalua - partners, the Association sponsors Republic. tion, general medicine, psychology, projects for the underprivileged: One technical support, coordination with Day Mobile Clinics work across nine The healthcare programme provided by other sector institutions, training of regions, offering cancer tests to women; the Order’s Association in the health care professionals, community the Changing Lives programme brings Dominican Republic continued to members and health education for the poor patients and their families to provide high quality healthcare services general population. hospitals in Guatemala City; the Order’s at two mother and child clinics – one on ten clinics and pharmacies assist over the outskirts of the capital, Santo The Cuban Association has undertaken 15,000 people annually; the Order’s Food Domingo, and the other in Monte Plata, medical missions in the Dominican For Education Programme, coordinated a sparsely-populated rural area in the Republic in 2002, 2007 and 2009, with with the US Department of Agriculture centre of the country. Both offer a wide medical support at Manuel J.Centurion and a number of NGOs, distributes food range of antenatal and postnatal Hospital, Licey al Medio, where on each to over 30,000 families monthly (in services, as well as HIV counselling, visit a team saw 1,540 patients in 3 days, accepting the rations they must send home visits, and training for healthcare bringing six months’ supply of their children to school and take skills professionals and health education for medicines and other pharmaceutical training programmes – most popular is the general population. The Monte Plata products to a value of $140,000; they dressmaking) and provides hot meals to Clinic plays a significant additional role also provided support for the needy in 121 schools daily. The Association also as the main medical centre for the the town of Juncalito. In addition, the regularly distributes medicines, medical entire province, with mothers travelling Association sent teams in response to kits, furnishing and clothing to 28 for up to four hours to receive attention. the hurricanes in the area, in both 2007 hospitals across the country. Donations and 2008. sent from abroad are distributed by the Services include pediatric services, Order’s Embassy to the needy, working dental care, lab tests, pharmacy, gynae - In the rural communities of the with the Association. cology care, detection of cervical, Dominican Republic, outside Consuelo, uterine and breast cancer, sonograms, the USA Federal Association’s Project For over 15 years the Order of Malta has vaccinations, monitoring of child growth Lifeline team has treated more than provided care for the needy in Haiti ,

64 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA through its work and support in the The work of the Honduras Association The wide-ranging help provided by the Hôpital Sacré Coeur, Milot (73-bed includes providing logistical support to Mexican Association includes support general hospital in the north, 57,000 medical teams which make regular and care for children, families and outpatients yearly). The Order also visits to rural towns in the southern part elderly people in Mexico City. supports the Haitian Health Foundation of the country, where they serve more (a preventive and curative health and than 10,000 people each year. A programme to ‘Save a Child from development programme in the city of AIDS’ was launched in 2007 and helped Jérémie, the poorest area of the The Association also distributes more than 300 HIV-positive mothers to country; support to over 100 rural donations of medicines and medical deliver healthy babies. In 2008, this mountain villages); and Hope for Haiti equipment every year to 10 of the figure was again reached. It supple - (project with 37 schools for 12,000 largest hospitals in Honduras, as well ments the ‘Help me to Grow’ nutritional children, medical distribution to 60 as to some 300 smaller clinics and programme which has provided healthcare facilities, mobile medical hospitals, working with AmeriCares and essential nutrition for more than 4,000 teams, clean water). Food for the Poor – in the last few years young Mexican children over the past distributions amounted to a value of four years. As the January 2010 earthquake news US$45 million. broke, the Order’s worldwide relief Other activities include providing eye service, Malteser International, at once All of this is in addition to a three-year surgery and care for needy people who prepared medical teams to assist, as did programme of distributing powdered are visually impaired and an educational the Order’s Ambassador to Haiti, the milk - 960 metric tons of milk - and programme designed to encourage the Order Associations in the Dominican other nutritional foodstuffs to a variety use of low-cost soy in home cooking. Republic, in the United States and the of beneficiaries throughout the country. other Associations in the region. The Order projects include the San Juan The Sacré Coeur hospital, which was not The Cuban Association’s medical Bosco boarding school for 367 children, damaged, began to receive and treat the missions in Honduras support the Iztapalapa, Mexico City; a retirement first seriously injured. parish of Choluteca. And the American home in Mexico City for the elderly Association supports Friendship House - handicapped; the Clinic S.Maria de The Order’s international teams from two homes for street children, caring for Guadalupe, Netzahuacoyotl, Mexico City, Europe and the Americas included 130 abandoned boys and girls aged 2-18 which carries out 300 medical consulta - doctors, medical auxiliaries, critical care who otherwise would have been left on tions per month; Centros Asistenciales staff and Creole-speaking nurses. After the streets and in the garbage dumps Zentapatl y Cacalote, poor area of initial aid in Port-au-Prince, the Order looking for food. Mexico City which helps 300 families focused on Leogane, a town of 200,000 with food, medical and dental care, near the quake epicentre, almost totally and job training. destroyed and receiving little outside help. First concerns: medical aid, minor surgery, psychological care, clean water facilities, food and shelter for victims. Fear of disease and epidemics was always present. Already by day four, over 2,000 patients had been treated at the Order’s Leogane health camp.

The Order’s teams will remain for months, giving medical aid, setting up hygiene and health care campaigns, helping reconstruct lives, homes and livelihoods of this devastated people. An office in Miami, the Haiti Relief Center, is staffed by volunteers providing information to donors and volunteers. To ensure continuing aid, Order organisations met in March 2010 in Miami to draw up a Haiti Master Plan of the Order of Malta. The Order's medical teams helped hundreds of survivors in the very first days after the earthquake in Haiti, January 2010

WORLDWIDE MEDICAL, HEALTH AND SOCIAL WELFARE ACTIVITIES 65 and Nuevo Huacará, devastated by the earthquake of 2007. To date, a total of 92 houses have been reconstructed as well as a park and a refectory for children. 2009: the ‘Our Lady of Filermo’ infirmary started operations. The Association operates the Divino Niño Orden de Malta clinic in southern Lima, and Valle Amauta in the west. Malteser Peru operates the San Juan Bautista refectory where 50 children are fed daily and young adults are trained to become bakers.

The Uruguayan Association has estab - lished a programme of dental health - care in an under-developed rural area of the country. A voluntary orthodontist makes weekly visits to provide children from low-income families with treatment as well as advice on the prevention of dental problems. The Order’s three American associations organised working bees to reconstruct homes in There are plans to extend this service New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina with the addition of a mobile unit.

During 2007: distribution of medicines schools in poor areas of Panama City, Volunteers also continue to help to provided by AmeriCares involved 3,000 with assistance to handicapped children people with leprosy, to provide homes Order volunteers and helped 185,000 at the schools, provision of scholastic for poverty-stricken elderly women and families in 721 communities. After the aids and recently, restructuring of some to run a night shelter for the homeless November 2007 floods in Tabasco and of the buildings. The Association and the destitute. Chiapas, the Mexican Association launched a first-aid clinic at the Basilica provided medical teams, volunteers, of San Juan Bosco, Panama City, In the United States of America , food and clothing - and funds to build a in 2009, where the very poor have no the Order is active through its three small tortilla factory to supply 5,000 access to any health care; it also Associations: the American Association, locals. In 2008: 580 farmers were sponsors and helps fund the Social the Federal Association and the Western assisted in the very poor area of San Centre in the Basilica, located in one of Association. Nicolás Buenos Aires Puebla and in the poorest areas of Panama City. poor areas of Mexico City, underprivi - The American Association has an active leged young were trained as artisans, Paraguay : The Order’s volunteer organi - programme of prison ministry in 18 selling articles in two cooperatives. sation offers First Aid lessons, areas, including bible study groups in emergency help and medical and dental maximum security prisons and tutoring Nicaragua : the Order was able to supply health services to the local population. children of prisoners in the South emergency medicines (US$3 million) to It gives medical assistance in Loma Bronx. In New Jersey, members victims of Hurricane Felix, which struck Grande and Jesùs to patients with to 6,800 Catholic prisoners the region in September 2007 and in congenital malformations. throughout the state prison systems, conjunction with Americares, the including providing Bibles and Prayer Order’s Embassy distributes medicines The Peruvian Association has estab - Books. The Association has organised and medical supplies on a regular basis lished a programme to assist the development programmes for recently- to small clinics around the country. indigent population in the Department of released prisoners, such as the creation Puna (altitude over 4,000 meters), where of a database of employers in the New The Panamanian Association in 2008 has distributed over seven tons of food Jersey area who are willing to hire ex- widely distributed medicines to more and clothing in the region where convicts. Volunteers also work with a than 80 hospitals, health care centres, children and the elderly die every year Juvenile Detention Center with incarcer - orphanages, homes for the elderly, from exposure to the cold. The ated children aged 12 to 18 who have schools, prisons and similar institutions Association continues its work of recon - been placed in the Center by the Courts. across the country. It also supports two structing the villages of Cedros de Villa In some cases, they simply do not have

66 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA a home or parents who will take care of thousands of adults and children have Every February, in seven dioceses, the them. The Association’s Malta Human no access to medical care. Staffed by Order sponsors a Mass including the Services Foundation gave US$959,000 in volunteer doctors and nurses, the only administration of the Sacrament of the grants to 49 ministries in 2007 – condition is that the patient has no Sick, in response to the Pope’s call for a including $415,000 to 10 international medical insurance. World Day of the Sick. Through this Day, programmes. In 2008 grants reached a the Order carries the spirit of Lourdes million dollars. The Order operates four Parish Nurse into its own neighborhoods. Programmes in which nurses, accompa - Abroad, the American Association is nied by members of the Order, bring The Order’s Association in involved in support in Haiti and communion and provide medical infor - runs a home for elderly people who are Honduras (see above). mation to the housebound. Twice a poor, sick or abandoned by their month, members prepare and serve sit- families. Elsewhere in the country, a The Federal Association has an down meals to over 200 homeless men, day-care training and medical centre in extensive programme of help for needy women and children at the St. Francis a very poor area of Santa Cruz was people in 18 cities, including soup Center in Los Angeles. In Orange inaugurated in 2008 in conjunction with kitchens, night shelters and the County, the Taller San Jose project the Centro Medico di Trinidad. provision of clothing for homeless empowers undereducated, unskilled, people in Baltimore, Charlotte, Houston, and unemployed youth to move out of Jacksonville, Kansas City and New poverty and on to self-reliance and a Orleans. productive adulthood.

Volunteers also provide social and medical help for the Hispanic community in Atlanta, and visits to hospital patients and care-home residents in several cities. The Malta House of Care, which provides free primary care to the poor and uninsured in Hartford, is another of the Association’s activities.

In Central America the Federal Association is active in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and runs Project Lifeline in Guatemala.

In 2008, members of the Western Association and volunteers devoted over 60,000 hours of hands-on service to care programmes in nine major metropolitan areas, including Los Angeles, Oakland, Phoenix, San Francisco, San Jose and Seattle. The Western Association also contributed over $2,000,000 to operate its two clinics and four Parish Nurse Programmes and to assist 60 local charities in which members serve, and six international charities.

The Western Association operates two medical clinics, in Los Angeles and in Oakland. The Order of Malta Oakland Clinic opened in October 2008 in the grounds of the city’s new Cathedral of Christ the Light. The clinics provide free Twenty years of missions in the Amazonian forest: aboard the Order's medical barge medical services in cities where Padre Raul Matte treats leprosy and the diseases of poverty

WORLDWIDE MEDICAL, HEALTH AND SOCIAL WELFARE ACTIVITIES 67 Africa

n the continent of Africa the Order works in 38 countries, treating every O day the victims of illness – AIDS, tuberculosis, leprosy, sleeping sickness. As well as providing medical equipment and medicines, water, food and clothing to those in need, it also offers healthcare and psycho-social care to women who are victims of violence, to refugees from civil conflicts or natural disasters.

In Benin , the Ordre de Malte France runs a 76-bed hospital in Djougou which cares for a local population of 300,000 people and undertakes more than 437 surgical procedures and delivers around 445 babies each year. The Order provides essential healthcare in Nairobi Remand Prison, the largest in Kenya A vaccination programme against meningitis in Burkina Faso has helped In Cameroon , a 10-bed deparment in The Order’s Embassy in Kinshasa, to protect more than five million people, the Order’s hospital in Mokolo is (Democratic Republic of ) Congo while a dispensary at Ouagadougou providing therapy, rehabilitation and operates many actions to help this recently completed more than 7,700 housing for people with leprosy, whilst a country’s poor and sick. It continues to consultations. The Order also helps to large AIDS clinic continues its work in supply food and medicines to the support a national AIDS programme, the hospital, including providing care for country’s hospices and hospitals as part supplies and distributes medicines to HIV positive mothers and their infants. of a medical aid programme which also 35 health centres, supports a dozen And in Njombe its general hospital includes a health education service and dispensaries. At the end of 2008 an continues its care (see article page 36). visits by medical missions to isolated emergency aid centre was established health centres. It supplies food and at Bobo-Dioulasso, as well as three care In Chad the Order runs five health medicines to two homes for street centres to treat albino children, who are programmes, including a health centre children – houses of ‘Peace and Rest’ - marginalised by their society. First aid for the local population in Amtoukomi most of whom have been rejected by groups have been trained for over ten and another in Walia. The centre in their families for all kinds of illness years and number 30 young volunteers Djamena completes 45,000 consultations (HIV) or fetishist reasons, many having each year. There is also training for and 4,500 laboratory tests every year. just to be accompanied to their passing. ambulance drivers, and 2008 registered The Embassy helps financially and 1654 callouts. Our medical and care work in the administratively with 15 medical Comoros Islands includes supporting a missions a year which service hospitals The Ordre de Malte France continues to leprosy centre, a central dispensary in and health centres. It also supports the support two orphanages and health Moroni and two rural dispensaries. Comité d’Aide aux Pauvres, Hôpital centres in Burundi . Général de Kinshasa, which takes care

68 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA The Order’s medical aid includes child vaccination programmes of the poorest of the poor, patients with medical equipment and drugs, for a the leprosy treatment centre at Abu without material or financial means, yearly value of 713.000 €. Since 2006, Zabal in Egypt , in 2007 and 2008 it many homeless, several just abandoned with the financial support of the received special support from the in front of the hospital. Also supported European Commission (Refugees Fund), Order’s French and Italian Associations: with food and medicines is the Pediatry the French Association and the Order’s 750 residents are cared for on a daily Foundation of Kimbondo, a 150-bed Embassy cooperate with the Congolese basis, most of whom have been rejected paediatric hospital which takes care of National Agency for Migration and by their families and are condemned to abandoned children, or those whose Foreigners in assisting repatriated live apart from society. families are unable to finance the emigrants from Europe to find a new Plans for a Family day care centre in needed medical treatment. location, a new job or to create a small Shoubra El-Sahel, Cairo, coordinated business. By early 2009: 25 repatriations between the Order’s Embassy, the Malta Belgium International, a founda - and 17 micro-projects for a total value Egyptian government and UNDP are tion of the Belgian Association of the of 80.000 € had been effected. well underway, with sections completing Order, is also active in DR Congo. It in 2010. recently completed a rehabilitation The wide-ranging medical aid provided department at the King Baudoin by Malteser International in DR Congo In Guinea Ordre de Malte France is Hospital, Kinshasa, supports ongoing includes support for more than 350 involved in projects to prevent the complementary works, and finances its health centres, the provision of medical spread of leprosy and TB. management board representative. and psychosocial care for abused 2008-2009: A continuing renovation women, assistance for trauma patients, A feasibility study by the Order’s Italian project for a number of health centres - as well as the rehabilitation of many of Association for the government of two hospitals and six dispensaries - on the country’s health facilities and public Equatorial Guinea recommends estab - Lake Kivu, will provide patient rehabili - infrastructure. lishing a hospital, an integrated system tation in this key State Health Zone. of day care centres, and training of The Order has provided a minibus as medical and paramedical personnel. Ordre de Malte France supports 7 well as washing machines, sterilisers, It is the starting point in specifying a diocesan health centres, supplying them medicines and medical equipment to hospitaller infrastructure, socio-health

WORLDWIDE MEDICAL, HEALTH AND SOCIAL WELFARE ACTIVITIES 69 established its second centre in Mali for the training of ambulance drivers and first-aiders, following this in 2008 with the opening of a dispensary and labora - tory near the Niger border. The Order’s medical work also includes supporting seven health centres.

In Mauritania the Ordre de Malte France continues to run a rehabilitation scheme for people suffering from leprosy.

Ordre de Malte France has received many donations since 2001 for the support of the cancer hospital at Victoria de Candoss in Mauritius . The money has helped to provide ambu - lances and 30 hospital beds as well as supplies of medicines and other equipment.

The Order has been active in since the mid 1990s. A Health Agreement signed with the Minister of Health and Ordre de Malte France led to the carrying out of 1,500 cataract opera - tions in 2008 alone. The medical work includes supporting seven centres in isolated communities for the diagnosis and therapy of diabetes, as well as the Order medical teams in Congo treat malaria and AIDS patients and victims of sexual financing of a cataract surgical violence; they also supply food, medicines and psychological support campaign. Training programmes for ambulance technicians and first-aid care structures and training for a wide- centre in Komborodougou, a 24-bed trainers have recently been introduced. ranging urban and rural health care health centre in Koni, and a day-care network. In Beta the Spanish health centre in Niangon as well as In 2008 and 2009, the Order’s Embassy Association runs a day-care centre for three smaller health centres. to Mozambique provided financial people who are mentally ill and covers support for a new campaign to help the maintenance and repairs of the only Between them these centres provide people with AIDS as well as help in an leprosy clinic and leper colony in the surgical and medical care for a popula - AIDS clinic, especially to care for country. tion of many thousands of people, as orphans with AIDS, at the Mission of well as specialised pre-natal, paediatric Mememo, Marracuene, in Mozambique . The Order’s Embassy in Gabon distrib - and dental care facilities. uted medicines from France to local The Order recently donated supplies and dispensaries and clinics – in Port Gentil Work to aid the poor in the slums of equipment to establish a sewing school and Librevill Lalala, and a financial Nairobi, Kenya , is a special, ongoing in Namibia for women whose husbands grant to the leprosarium of Ebeigne is project (see article page 32). A joint have died from AIDS. now on an annual basis. programme of the Principality of and the Order of Malta identi - Medicines are being distributed to the Volunteers from the Portugese fies cases of children with deformed or hospital at Niamey in Niger , where a Association are also regular visitors to damaged hearts, who are in need of an leprosy centre has also been estab - Guinea-Bissau , where they work with operation not available in Kenya. lished at Maradi. needy children in local primary schools. The operation is then carried out at the Centre Cardio-Thoracique de Monaco. Support for an oral hygiene clinic On the Ivory Coast , the Ordre de Malte in São Tome and Principe included the France runs a 37-bed general health In 2007 the Ordre de Malte France donation of ambulances and medical

70 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA supplies to be used in a programme of The Order continues to run the Blessed tions and malaria prevention in five dental treatment and health care. Gerard AIDS hospital and orphanage at centres. In 2008, Malteser Mandeni in South Africa , in a region International’s Darfur nutrition Money and medicines have been where up to 88% of the population test campaigns benefitted 22,000 women provided by Ordre de Malte France to positive for HIV/AIDS. The work of this and children, with 5,875 children support leprosy research and treatment care complex never ceases: it houses a weighed, put in feeding programmes if programmes in Senegal at ILAD (Institut hospice which provides home based serious, and mothers given nutrition de Léprologie Appliquée de Dakar) care, day care and inpatient care for lessons. Aid to remote villages: infants’ which has 42 beds -22 medicine, those suffering from the disease, and polio immunisation, child growth moni - 20 surgical and budget of 360,000 Euro trains the public in home-based care; toring, care for pregnant women, aid of which 80% comes from Ordre de a clinic, where malnourished infants are workers trained in maternal/neonatal Malte France. The Order also runs the examined and treated and their parents care. With little data on mother/child Socio-Medical Centre on the island of or carers learn proper baby care; and a mortality rates, carers are asked to Gorée, which in 2007 recorded 1,956 pre-primary-school and crèche for report cases to Malteser International. consultations and 25 births. Until 2008, underprivileged children. The centre Ordre de Malte France had sent many also offers to look after and give a home The Order’s Italian Association coordi - tons of medicines and medical to sick, neglected, abused, malnour - nates fundraising for a girls’ secondary equipment to Senegal free of charges ished, abandoned and orphaned school in Rumbek and operates the but now these may only be distributed at children, and provides bursaries to poor Archangelo Ali clinic. In Yei, the Order production cost. Solutions are currently pupils and students from the local provides care for 800,000, runs controls being studied. community. for TB and HIV/AIDS, runs fixed and mobile health centres, and works on A minibus has been donated to the In Sudan and Darfur the Order provides sleeping sickness prevention. Victoria Hospital in Seychelles , as well vaccinations, pre- and post-natal as equipment for the handicapped and education, malaria prevention, rehabili - In Togo , Ordre de Malte France supports parcels of Christmas toys to five tation and support to local health the 12-bed hospital at Elavagnon by orphanages. centres. An example: in El Fasher, providing medicines and medical Darfur, basic healthcare covers vaccina - equipment.

Mother and child care is an Order priority in Africa: queuing up at an Order primary care centre

WORLDWIDE MEDICAL, HEALTH AND SOCIAL WELFARE ACTIVITIES 71 Middle East

n Iran we provided emergency medical supplies and sent an eight-man rescue team to help I care for the victims of the Bam earthquake, which we followed up in subsequent years with recon - struction projects.

In Iraq we had carried out considerable rehabilitation and medical work, particularly in the Baghdad area and in Northern Iraq. Despite the deterioration in the security situation, our work in two health centres in Baghdad continues.

In Lebanon , the Order of Malta’s Bethlehem Hospital Association runs 16 health and social centres throughout the country and in In collaboration with the Shiite organi - Touma and the Home of Peace for 2008 alone assisted 85,000 patients, sation’s Imam Moussa el Sadr Children in Salieh, Damascus. We also with over 250,000 medical services. Foundation, the Order runs the Health run a centre for the protection of young Two mobile units of the Order made Centre of Siddikine (carrying out more girls in the town of Aleppo, where our 11,500 medical interventions. More than than 7,000 medical acts per year) and other activities include the provision of 1,700 elderly people were looked after in one of the two mobile clinics the Order start-up kits for Iraqi refugee families the three day care centres for elderly operates in the country. and the supply of school material to people and 95 handicapped children Iraqi and Syrian children. were treated daily in the Centre Our activities in Syria include a mother Hospitalier de Bhannes. and child protection project at Bab

Bethlehem: Holy Family Hospital celebrates 20 years The Holy Family Hospital’s 20 years offering care for mothers and infants in Bethlehem was celebrated in the presence of the Hospital’s Board and the Order’s Grand Hospitaller, Albrecht Boeselager. The hospital has become the primary maternity hospital and referral centre, with the only neonatal department in this area of the Palestinian territories for many years, with mothers coming long distances, mainly from the Hebron area south of Bethlehem, but more recently from villages east of Jerusalem, due to the construction of the wall. More than 3,000 babies are born in the hospital each year, with total deliveries since 1990 at 48,000. In this area of conflict and political upheaval, the Hospital welcomes all, in the traditions of the Order of Malta - regardless of religion, race or means. Patients are asked to pay what they can afford: many can afford nothing, in an area where there is 70% unemployment. Annual running costs are currently over US$3 million, with the hospital financed by the Associations of the Order of Malta, private donors and regular fundraising campaigns. Ongoing expansion plans include five additional neonatal intensive care beds, three neonatal isolation beds, four extra delivery rooms and three adult intensive care beds. The hospital’s dedicated team is made up of 140 highly qualified personnel and it is with pride that Dr. Robert Tabash notes that “20 members of staff at Holy Family Hospital have been with us since the beginning. A sense of belonging to the family is reflected in everyday work.”

72 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA Asia - Pacific

he Australian Association has continued to extend its voluntary services in pallia - T tive care for the sick in the states of Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales.

During 2007 the Association worked as a partner in Eastern Palliative Care to handle a total of 1,565 referrals from many sources including 43 hospitals. In Melbourne, the now well known Friday night school for refugee children continues its work to orientate non- English speaking children into the local environment, customs and language. World Youth Day, Sydney, 2008 In Queensland, volunteers from the Order played a pivotal role in estab - South Australia: volunteers work in a the Order of Malta, CIOMAL, took over lishing the Palliative Care Hospice and soup kitchen for the poor in Hutt Street from the Order’s Embassy in Cambodia Home Care Service, and helped to Centre in Adelaide whilst in Western in the running of a programme through provide a wide range of materials and Australia, support for indigenous health which extra food and other necessities equipment for the care and comfort of and cancer care is ongoing. are provided to pregnant women and the frail-aged, the sick and the dying. children living in the country’s prisons. Other fundraising activities, supple - CIOMAL – which has been diagnosing In New South Wales, meanwhile, a mented by grants from the Australian and treating cases of leprosy since 1994 committee was established to identify Government (AusAID), have provided – continues to provide this service in potential gaps in the delivery of pallia - AU$500,000 to support the rebuilding of support of the Ministry of Health. tive care services which could be filled war-damaged health clinics in Lebanon, The total number of new cases detected by the Order. Since 2006, the Order has and AU$550,000 to help victims of in 2007 was 315, with 265 admissions raised more than AU$800,000 to support Cyclone Nargis in Burma/Myanmar. and 485 out-patient consultations in the the work of the drug and alcohol unit at The fundraising was done in cooperation rehabilitation centre. A further 812 out- St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney. Known with Caritas Australia. patient consultations were provided for as Gorman House, the unit cares for people with various skin diseases. some of Sydney’s most marginalised In July 2008, the Association, together The year also saw the introduction of a people and has over 1,500 admissions with its many young volunteers, also new focus on providing both physical annually. Members and volunteers run played a role during World Youth Day in and socio-economic rehabilitation weekly social activities, including Sydney, caring for disabled people at the services to people disabled as a conse - barbeques for patients and the recent Vigil and Papal Mass. Projects abroad quence of leprosy. Many small loans popular innovation of the Gorman House include Timor Leste and Papua New were made to rehabilitated patients as Singers, a choir made up of patients and Guinea (see below). income-generating programmes. other homeless people. In 2007, the International Committee of Malteser International runs community-

WORLDWIDE MEDICAL, HEALTH AND SOCIAL WELFARE ACTIVITIES 73 based projects for a health insurance care and disaster preparedness. nursing students and treats 7,500 system, and to educate the local popula - The efforts have been recognised in an patients a year. As well, the Association tion in basic care, with particular award from the State Disaster offers a First Aid and emergency service emphasis on mother and child health, in Management Authority of the State of for public events and pilgrimages. Oddar Meanchey, north west Cambodia. Jammu and Kashmir in October 2009. In 2008, 360 wheelchairs from the In Swat, Pakistan’s north-west frontier, United States were distributed The Order’s humanitarian aid mission to returning displaced persons in late 2009 throughout the country, and an ongoing Georgia , in 2008, organised and provided suffering emotional and heat exhaustion medical distribution programme collects by the Order Embassy in Tiblisi and the and intestinal diseases, found no and distributes medical supplies to 124 Polish Association, gave expert medical adequate health care, as centres had recipients in three major regions. assistance to 3,000 patients, together been destroyed. A Malteser In early 2009 an innovative programme with medical care for the 8,400 International medical team has for the Prevention of Mother-to-Child residents of six refugee camps. supported the most vulnerable, particu - transmission of HIV/AIDS, called the In addition, the mission provided ten larly mothers, infants and small St. Ubaldesca PMTCT Program, was tonnes of pharmaceuticals, food, children. created to operate in a number of hygiene products and medical hospitals and health centres. equipment to help those injured or In Papua New Guinea , an Eye Project displaced as a result of the conflict. supported by the Australian Association The Singapore Association was officially at the Mt.Sion Centre for the Blind has established in 2006 and immediately Two massive earthquakes struck provided cataract surgery for over 5,000 started to provide emergency humani - Sumatra, in late 2009, leaving patients since 1995. The Project tarian and medical aid to the victims of thousands stranded. In remote includes running a programme for a series of natural and man-made Pilubang, Sungai Limau, Malteser children to recognise if family members disasters. International has provided emergency exhibit symptoms. relief for 1700 families with basic neces - Already in 2003, following the Bali bomb sities and healthcare. Elsewhere in the The Philippines Association, which cele - disaster, urgently needed medical Aceh Utara Lhokseumawe region, brated its 50th anniversary in 2007, supplies were provided, while in 2006 support programmes include training organises regular visits by volunteers to antibiotics and other medicines were farmers to cultivate chillis and peanuts nine hospitals and hospices. It also runs sent to the Order’s Hospital in to supplement their meagre income and the Order of Malta medical and dental Bethlehem following an outbreak of diet, and training villagers in basic clinic in Manila, which is staffed by conflict between Israeli and community healthcare and school - volunteer doctors and medical and Palestinians. children in hygiene awareness.

The Order’s Embassy in Kazakhstan has organised humanitarian aid, including financial support for orphanages in Almaty, Keskelen and Kapciagaj, the donation of two microbuses to provide transport for needy people, and the funding of a new and larger soup kitchen in Astana.

In north-east Pakistan , the Order of Malta’s International Relief Corps is operating mobile units with doctors and midwives to tackle the serious humani - tarian situation in the region, where the existing health centres are either inac - cessible or under attack after clashes between the Pakistan army and the Taliban. Internal refugees number over 1.5 million. The Corps has been in Pakistan since 2005 and is working on projects in the Muzaffarabad and Kohistan districts, focusing on health - Malteser International distributes aid in Burma/Myanmar

74 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA Following the Asian tsunami in December, 2004, the Association raised funds to help restore a severely- damaged church and school in Aceh and to work with NGOs in the building of over 100 new homes and two jetties on the island of Pulau Aceh (population 6,000), as well as the provision of 10 new fishing boat for the returning villagers to earn a living, and two visiting teachers’ homes.

Overseas activities include the building and equipping of a small clinic and dispensary at Chom Chieng in North Laos, sending orthopaedic surgeons to Bandul, Indonesia, after the 2007 earth - quake there, to work with the wounded. They also give support for the Mother Theresa Home in Calcutta, India, the CIOMAL International Leprosy project, repairs to the Maria Stella convent school in Sulawesi and the provision of medical and financial aid following the Myanmar cyclone disaster in May 2008.

In Ampara and Galle, Sri Lanka , the greatest problem is water. Malteser Malteser International staff distribute aid in Indonesia after the earthquake of September 2009 International has implemented the WASH project, to deal with water Medicines are regularly distributed by October 2009, for 35 nurses and for contamination after the 2004 tsunami, volunteers from the Australian drivers specialised in emergencies who where areas were left with inadequate Association to four missions in Timor will manage the ambulance services. water supplies, or water was contami - Leste . By the end of 2007 over AUD $1 Timor-Leste President, Ramos Horta, nated or salinised; it continues to million worth of medical supplies had personally expressed his appreciation to promote ecological sanitation and been distributed to a number of clinics the Order for the initiative. hygiene awareness. In Galle, Matara, and to the Dili Hospital. The Association Hambantota and Ampara, 53 schools funds eight scholarships for students to Typhoon Ketsana struck Vietnam in late are part of the WASH project, giving Salesian Agriculatral College, Fuiloro; 2009. The heavy rains which followed it 16,000 children access to child-friendly as well as two indigenous teachers at left a devastated population. Malteser water and sanitation facilities at school the Marist College, Bacau, and provides International teams were immediately in and improving their hygiene practices. financial support for a clinic at Venelale action, distributing hygiene kits for 5,300 Additionally, 5,000 rainwater harvesting for the care of patients with tubercu - families and iron sheets for hundreds of tanks have been constructed for 3,100 losis. And the Portuguese Association families for first repairs of their houses. families. From March 2009 Malteser supplied some 150,000 items of They are now concentrating on the reha - International has worked in the over - medicine and medical equipment, as bilitation of infrastructure in the fields of crowded displaced persons camps, well as school books for poor students, basic health care and water, sanitation where 200,000 survive in tents in the during 2007-2008. and hygiene and long-term will Vavunyia region. Support includes food implement a community based disaster distribution, improvement of sanitary Underway since September 2009: preparedness project in Danang. conditions and provision of water enhancement of the ambulance service In other parts of the country, local tankers to alleviate drinking water in Timor-Leste, seriously cut back clinics are being upgraded, training in shortages; emergency aid is focused on during the civil strife that has plagued small businesses for poor women in psycho-social care. The army / Tamil the country in recent years. Promoted by Danang province are underway and Tigers war is over but problems remain, the Order of Malta’s Australian traditional medicine gardens for ethnic including the inhuman living conditions Association and the Order’s Embassy on minority communes are under construc - of 300,000 war refugees. the island, the first courses started in tion in Quang-Nam.

WORLDWIDE MEDICAL, HEALTH AND SOCIAL WELFARE ACTIVITIES 75 Malteser International Emergency Relief and Rehabilitation

Compassion without herever aid is needed What are the most demanding ongoing urgently, Malteser activities for Malteser International? question, aid without International – the Right now, a focus activity is emergency boundaries Order’s worldwide aid for thousands of internally displaced W relief organisation – people in the north of Sri Lanka . is ready to provide it; We are working on improving hygiene with care, with compassion, and with a conditions in camps in Vavuniya and in commitment to help with sustainable Pulmoddai and will develop further rehabilitation once the immediate need areas of intervention with the supply of is over. food, medicines and psychosocial coun - selling by trained volunteers. The organisation currently has some 200 humanitarian programmes and In Myanmar , over two years after Cyclone projects active in more than 30 Nargis hit the country in May 2008, countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Malteser International is concentrating Americas, helping to ensure that around on the sectors of water, sanitation and eight-million people receive the help hygiene (WASH), on strengthening the and support they are crying out for so health systems for improved health desperately. service delivery and on the reconstruc - tion of health centres and schools in The President of the organisation, Labutta township and on Middle Island. Nicolas de Cock de Rameyen, reflects on aspects of the organisation’s work. In Congo , a particular concern is the number of women and children who have been affected in a country where rape is often used as an instrument of war. So we have extended our activities in medical and psychological support for victims of sexual violence.

How do you envisage Malteser International’s activity over the next few years? Because Malteser International expresses the Order of Malta’s mission to help people in disasters and crisis worldwide, we will intensify the Order’s capacity for international emergency relief and rehabilitation.

What motivates Malteser International staff around the world? Malteser International President Nicolas de Cock meets young patients in a rural health centre Our people in the field aim to provide

76 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA Malteser International support for earthquake victims those in need with rapid and efficient Have you a special memory of one of sleeping sickness. support. Worldwide, more than 1,000 your visits to a Malteser International highly qualified staff members are activity? When I returned a second time, six working for Malteser International. My very special memories go back to years later, Malteser International had During my project visits I am always a visit to our project region in South established new clinics, and a hospital very impressed by the great commit - Sudan in December 2001. Our journey in the grounds of the in ment with which our staff face the by car from Arua (Uganda) to Yei (South the settlement of Yei. When I attended problems on the ground, and how Sudan) on a road that could not even be Mass on Sunday, the church was professionally they help those in need to called a field path - passing from one crowded with people praying, singing overcome their problems and build a pothole into another - was an adventure and dancing. Despite all the difficulties, new future. Every day of every week they in itself. The country was in a deplorable the people of Yei have maintained a carry out their commitments, prompted situation, stricken by poverty, disease natural dignity and a profound faith. And by the Christian principles which guide and wartime terror. When we at last Malteser International gives them hope the Order of Malta. arrived at our project location, I felt we and the experience that the love of God, were back in the Middle Ages. I saw through those helping them, will lead What keeps them going in difficult situ - children carrying arms, and absolutely them and their children to a better life. ations? everyone was always alert, ready to Our staff – both national and interna - jump into the next bomb shelter to I would like to express our most sincere tional - are proud to be part of the escape unexpected air raids. But despite gratitude to all friends and supporters worldwide Malteser family. The Order of the truly miserable living and working of Malteser International and to invite Malta is the foundation which gives their conditions, I was able to meet the highly everyone attracted by our work to come work a meaning. It is their mission to committed Malteser International staff, and see our projects on the spot. Make alleviate human suffering worldwide and to accompany them to the wards for yourself a member of the team, come it keeps them going, even in difficult patients suffering from tuberculosis and and visit the projects! situations. I commend them for their malaria and to join the outreach teams commitment, their motivation and their visiting remote villages to identify those For more information: high professionalism. suffering from leprosy, cholera or www.malteser-international.org

WORLDWIDE MEDICAL, HEALTH AND SOCIAL WELFARE ACTIVITIES 77 government

78 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA The government of the Sovereign Order of Malta is composed of a senior council of ministers and councillors who assist the Grand Master in overseeing the Order’s activities around the world in all their aspects: religious, hospitaller, judicial and diplomatic.

GOVERNMENT 79 The government of the Order Composition and operation

The purpose of the Sovereign overnment of the Sovereign State are drawn from representatives of Order of Malta is similar to the Grand Priories, the Sub-Priories, Order of Malta is “the promotion the structures for state the National Associations and the of… the Christian virtues of governments. However, Order’s organisations established G it also includes specific around the world. charity and brotherhood. features associated with its The Order carries out its nature as a religious lay order, as well The Grand Master governs the Order, charitable works for the sick, as particular terminology evolved from assisted by the Sovereign Council, which the needy and refugees without nine centuries of history. he chairs. It is made up of the Grand Commander (the religious of distinction of religion, race, The Order’s system of governance is the Order’s religious members); Grand origin or age. divided into three powers: legislative Chancellor (Minister for Foreign Affairs The Order fulfils its institutional power, which resides with the Chapter and Minister of the Interior); Grand General, the representative body for the Hospitaller (Minister for Health and tasks especially by carrying out knights, and the Grand Master with the Social Affairs, Humanitarian Action and hospitaller works, including Sovereign Council; executive power, International Co-operation); Receiver of which resides with the Sovereign the Common Treasure (Minister for health and social assistance, Council; and judicial power, which is in Finance and Budget), together with six as well as aiding victims of the hands of the Courts of the Order. other members, all elected by the exceptional disasters and war…” The Grand Master is the Order’s Chapter General from among the Supreme Leader, elected for life by the Professed Knights or Knights in (Extracts from Article 2 of the full Council of State. Members of the Obedience. The Sovereign Council is Constitutional Charter) Chapter General and the full Council of elected for a term of five years.

The Constitutional Charter and Code governs the life and activities of the Order. The Chapter General of 1997 instituted an Advisory Board to the Order’s government – the Government Council. The Board of Auditors is responsible for economic and financial control. Every five years, the members of these two bodies are elected by the Chapter General. The Order’s Courts are Courts of First Instance and of Appeal, with a President, Judges, Judicial Auditors and Auxiliaries. Legal questions of extraordinary importance are submitted for advice to a technical body, the Juridical Advisory Council.

Fra’ Matthew Festing 79th Grand Master of the Order of Malta

80 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA Government of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta

SOVEREIGN COUNCIL The Sovereign Council assists the Grand Master in the government of the Order. It is composed of Grand Master, Grand Commander, Grand Chancellor, Grand Hospitaller and Receiver of the Common Treasure and six Council members. The Sovereign Council is called by the Grand Master and meets at the seat of the Order of Malta at least six times a year and whenever special circumstances require it. 79th Prince and Grand Master H.M.E.H. Fra’ Matthew Festing

H.E. Ven. Bailiff Fra’ Gherardo Hercolani Fava Simonetti Grand Commander

H.E. Bailiff Jean-Pierre Mazery Grand Chancellor

H.E. Bailiff Albrecht Freiherr von Boeselager Grand Hospitaller

H.E. Bailiff Marquis Gian Luca Chiavari Receiver of the Common Treasure

COUNCIL MEMBERS H.E. Professed , Fra’ Carlo d’Ippolito di Sant’Ippolito H.E. Professed Knight , Fra’ John T. Dunlap H.E. Professed Knight , Fra’ Duncan Gallie H.E. Professed Knight , Emmanuel Rousseau H.E. Knight Grand Cross , Antonio R. Sanchez-Corea, Jr. H.E. Bailiff Winfried Graf Henckel von Donnersmarck

GOVERNMENT COUNCIL JURIDICAL COUNCIL MAGISTRAL COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE Vice President President President Fausto Solaro del Borgo Prof. Avv. Andrea Comba Prof. Avv. Paolo Papanti Pelletier de Berminy Councillors Vice-President Judges Ruy do Valle Peixoto de Villas Boas Prof. Avv. Leonardo Perrone Prof. Avv. Giovanni Giacobbe Debbané Secretary General Prof. Avv. Gianpiero Milano Juan O’Naghten y Chacón Prof. Avv. Paolo Papanti Pelletier de Berminy Dr. Arturo Martucci Simon Grenfell Members Prof. Francesco d'Ayala Valva Daniel J. Kelly Dr. Alberto Virgilio, Honorary Vice-President Chancellor of the Magistral Courts Prof. Damiano Nocilla Col. Alessandro Bianchi BOARD OF AUDITORS Prof. Avv. Arturo Maresca President Dr. Massimo Vari COMMISSION FOR THE PROTECTION Franz Harnoncourt-Unverzagt OF NAMES AND EMBLEMS Councillors MAGISTRAL COURT OF APPEAL President Fra’ Roberto Massi Gentiloni Silverj President Fra' John T. Dunlap Bruno de Seguin Pazzis d’Aubignan Prof. Avv. Cesare Maria Moschetti Emmanuele Emanuele Judges STRATEGY STEERING COMMITTEE Lancelot d’Ursel Prof. Avv. Annibale Marini President Alternate Councillors Prof. Avv. Giancarlo Perone The Grand Chancellor Stephen Diaz-Gavin Prof. Avv. Leonardo Perrone Delegated President Janos Esterhazy de Galanthia Prof. Avv. Arturo Maresca Winfried Henckel von Donnersmarck Avv. Massimo Massella Ducci Teri BOARD OF COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION FOR DIPLOMATIC AFFAIRS President ad interim President Franz Harnoncourt-Unverzagt Amb. Philippe de Schoutheete de Tervarent

GOVERNMENT 81 Conferences

The Order’s activities stretch nternational and regional meetings • European Communicators Meeting , on strategic, hospitaller and Malta, January-February 2008 around the world and involve communications matters take thousands of members, I place regularly, with special topics • European Hospitallers Meeting , chosen for examination and action Malta, February-March 2008 volunteers and donors. at each conference. They are important • European Communicators Meeting , • European Hospitallers Meeting , Paris, September 2008 for discussion, sharing Paris, March 2007 of information and extension • International Strategy Seminar , of experiences in the many • European Communicators Meeting , Venice, January 2009 Krakow, July 2007 categories of aid the Order • International Hospitallers Meeting , provides. • The Seventh Conference of the Venice, January 2009 Americas , Mexico City, November 2007 • International Ambassadors Conference, • American Hospitallers Meeting , Geneva, February 2010 Mexico City, November 2007 • International Hospitallers Meeting, • Central and Eastern Europe , Vienna, Vienna, March 2010 November-December 2007

Every conference includes international representatives of the Order

82 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA The plenary session, Venice Conference 2009: ‘The Order Ten Years Ahead’

Looking 10 years ahead

The Venice Strategy Seminar which took place in January 2009 brought together over 400 participants from the Order membership worldwide. Entitled ‘The Order Ten Years Ahead’, the seminar was organised to examine and define the Order’s future strategies. Special meetings were convened for the Professed knights, the Presidents of national Associations, the Hospitallers of the Associations and the Order’s Diplomatic Corps, and then twelve working groups met and discussed their own topics in detail and deliberated on future demands. In every group, the focus was on reviewing spiritual commitment and its development in the future, on the promotion of the Order’s many charitable activities around the world and its special international programmes, the promotion of pilgrimages, the Order as promoter of peace among nations, religions and societies and the Order’s response to the needs of the 21st century.

GOVERNMENT 83 Official Visits of Grand Master Fra’ Andrew Bertie

2007 2008 24 January 22 May 24 January Meeting of the Grand Master Latvian Foreign Minister Artis Pabriks is President of the Republic of Timor- Fra’ Andrew Bertie and the Minister of received at the Magistral . Leste, José Manuel Ramos-Horta, Foreign Affairs of the Italian Republic, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996, Massimo D’Alema, at the Italian 22 June is received at Palazzo Orsini in Rome. Embassy to the Order of Malta. At the Vatican, on the occasion of the feast day of the Order’s patron saint, 7 February 29 January - 1 February St. John the Baptist, Pope Benedict XVI Ceremony for the Grand Duke and Fra’ Andrew Bertie pays an Official Visit receives Fra’ Andrew Bertie, who is Grand Duchess of Luxemburg at the to Brussels. King Albert II of Belgium accompanied by the Sovereign Council. Magistral Palace on the occasion of receives the Grand Master in the Royal their admission into the Order of Malta. Palace. Fra’ Andrew Bertie is received 15 October by Hans-Gert Pöttering, President of the The Foreign Minister of Paraguay, European Parliament, José Manuel Rubén Ramirez Lezcano, is received by Barroso, President of the European the Grand Master at the Magistral Commission, J án Figel, European Palace. Commissioner, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Secretary General of NATO, Armand 22 October De Decker, Belgium Minister of Grand Master Fra’ Andrew Bertie Cooperation in Development. receives Emília Kršíková, Secretary of State of the Ministry of Works, Social 19 February Affairs and the Family of the Slovak The President of the Italian Senate, Republic. Franco Marini, is received at the Magistral Palace. 6 November Grand Master Fra’ Andrew Bertie 8 March receives the Foreign Minister of Fra’ Andrew Bertie receives Jan Figel, Montenegro, Milan Ro ćen. European Commissioner for Education, Training, Culture and Multilingualism. 2 December Grand Master Fra’ Andrew Bertie 12-15 May welcomes Pope Benedict XVI to the Official Visit to Poland. Grand Master is Order of Malta’s San Giovanni Battista received by the President of the Polish Hospital in Rome. Republic, Lech Kaczynski. Fra’ Andrew Bertie meets with the Prime Minister, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the Polish Parliament Speaker, Ludwik Dorn, the Vice Speaker of the Senate, Ryszard Legutko, and Cardinal Primate Józef Glemp.

84 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA 29.1.07 Brussels. The President of the European Commission José 19.2.07 Magistral Palace. The President of the Italian Senate Manuel Barroso Franco Marini

14.5.07 Warsaw. The President of the Polish Republic Lech 7.2.08 Magistral Palace. Grand Duke of Luxemburg Kaczynski

22.6.07 . Grand Master Fra’ Andrew Bertie is received by Pope Benedict XVI

GOVERNMENT 85 Official Visits of Grand Master Fra’ Matthew Festing

23 June 2008 Grand Master Fra’ Matthew Festing 2009 receives at the Magistral Palace the 25 March Minister of Foreign Affairs of the 13 January The President of the 62 nd Session of Republic of Hungary, Mrs Kinga Göncz. Fra’ Matthew Festing, accompanied by General Assembly of the United Nations, members of the Sovereign Council and Srgjan Kerim, is received at the 6 September the Prelate of the Order, Mons. Angelo Magistral Palace. Official Visit of the President of Acerbi, attends the Requiem Mass for Romania, Traian Basescu, to the Order H.Em.Cardinal Pio Laghi, Cardinal 10 April of Malta. Patronus of the Order who died on Fra’ Matthew Festing receives the 10 January. The Mass is celebrated in Foreign Minister of the Slovak Republic, 8 October St. Peter’s Basilica by the Dean of the Ján Kubis, at the Magistral Palace. Grand Master Fra’ Matthew Festing College of Cardinals, H.Em.Angelo receives the President of the Italian Sodano, and in the presence of His 11 April Senate, Renato Schifani, at the Holiness Pope Benedict XVI. The Grand Master Fra’ Matthew Festing Magistral Palace. is received in private audience by Pope 9-11 February Benedict XVI at the Vatican. 28-31 October Grand Master Fra’ Matthew Festing pays Grand Master Fra’ Matthew Festing pays a State Visit to the Republic of Hungary, 14 April an Official Visit to the Republic of Latvia, meeting with the President of the The first official meeting of Grand where he is received by the President of Republic László Sólyom, and with the Master Fra’ Matthew Festing with the the Republic Valdis Zatlers at Riga Speaker of the Hungarian Parliament ambassadors accredited to the Castle. Katalin Szili, the Prime Minister Ferenc Sovereign Order of Malta led by their He has meetings with Minister of Gyurcsány, the Minister of Foreign doyen, the Ambassador of Honduras, Welfare Purne, Minister of Health Affairs Kinga Göncz and the Cardinal Alejandro Valladares Lanza. Egl ītis, Deputy Speaker P ētersone, the Archbishop Peter Erd ő. Cardinal Archbishop of Riga Pujats and 21 May the accredited Diplomatic Corps. 16-19 February Official Visit of the President of Albania, Grand Master Fra’ Matthew Festing, Dr. Bamir Topi, to the Order of Malta. 6 November in an Official Visit to Brussels, meets the Grand Master Fra’ Matthew Festing pays President of the European Commission 24 May an official visit to the President of the José Manuel Barroso, the President of The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister Italian Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, the European Parliament, Hans-Gert of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of at the Quirinale Palace. Pöttering, the EU High Representative Bulgaria, Ivaylo Kalfin, is received by for the Common Foreign and Security Fra’ Matthew Festing. 23-27 November Policy, Javier Solana, and NATO The Grand Master pays an Official Visit Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop 23 June to , meeting with President Scheffer. Grand Master Fra’ Matthew Festing, Stjepan Mesi ć in Zagreb. Following their together with the Sovereign Council, talks, the Grand Master is received by 20 February is received at the Vatican by Pope the Speaker of the Croatian Parliament, The Grand Master Fra’ Matthew Festing, Benedict XVI. Luka Bebi ć, and meets Deputy Prime pays an Official Visit to Cardinal Minister and Minister for the Family, Giovanni Lajolo, President of the Jadranka Kosor. Pontifical Commission for the Vatican

86 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA City State and of the Governorate of the 30 May 28 October - 3 November Vatican City State. Václav Klaus, President of the Czech Fra’ Matthew Festing pays an Official Republic and at that time holding the Visit to the Lebanon, where he is 23 February Presidency of the Council of the received by the President of the Marisol Argueta de Barillas, Minister of European Union, is received by the Republic General Michel Sleiman. Foreign Affairs of the Republic of El Grand Master at the Magistral Villa on The Grand Master also had talks with Salvador, is received by the Grand a State Visit. Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, President Master at the Magistral Palace. of the Lebanese Parliament Nabih Berri, 18 June and the 17 heads of the different 25 February The Grand Master, Fra’ Matthew religious confessions including Sunni, Visit of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Festing, receives at the Magistral Villa Shiite, Maronites, Greek Catholics, the Republic of Belarus, Sergei N. the President of Malta, George Abela. Greek Orthodox, Armenian Catholics, Martynov, to the Order of Malta. Chaldeans, Druse, Evangelists, Alawites, 25 June Assyrians. 28 April Pope Benedict XVI receives Fra’ The Grand Master, Fra’ Matthew Matthew Festing, accompanied by the 5 November Festing, receives the President of Sovereign Council of the Order on the Renato Schifani, President of the Italian Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, occasion of the feastday of St. John Senate, receives the Grand Master Fra’ on an Official Visit. Baptist, patron saint of the Order. Matthew Festing at Palazzo Giustiniani in Rome. 16 May 27 June Noel A. Kinsella, Speaker of the Senate At the invitation of the President of of Canada is received by the Grand Hungary, László Sólyom, the Grand Master on an Official Visit. Master, with other Heads of State, participates in the celebrations in 18 May Budapest for the 20th anniversary of Official visit of the President of Poland the fall of the Iron Curtain. Lech Kaczynski to the Order of Malta. 15 October 22 May Official Visit of Albert II. The Sovereign Georgi Parvanov, President of Bulgaria, Prince of Monaco is received by Fra' is received by Fra’ Matthew Festing, Matthew Festing at the Magistral Villa Grand Master, at the Magistral Villa on a State Visit.

21.5.08 Magistral Villa. The 6.9.08 Magistral Villa. The President 28.10.08 Riga. The President of Latvia, Valdis Zatlers President of Albania, Bamir Topi of Romania, Traian Basescu

GOVERNMENT 87 6.11.08 Rome. The President of the Italian Republic, 24.11.08 Zagreb. The President of the Republic of Croatia, Giorgio Napolitano Stjepan Mesi c´

9.2.09 Budapest. The President of the Republic of Hungary, László 17.2.09 Brussels. The President of the European Commission, José Sólyom Manuel Barroso

28.4.09 Magistral Villa. The President of Belarus, Alexander 18.5.09 Magistral Villa. The President of Poland, Lech Kaczynski Lukashenko

88 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA 22.5.09 Magistral Villa. The President of Bulgaria, Georgi Parvanov 30.5.09 Magistral Villa. The President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus

25.6.09 Vatican City. Pope Benedict XVI receives the Grand Master Fra’ Matthew Festing and the members of the Sovereign Council

15.10.09 Magistral Villa. Albert II of Monaco 28.10.09 Beirut. The President of the Republic of Lebanon Michel Sleiman

GOVERNMENT 89 Diplomacy Linking into humanitarian activity

he Order has bilateral The tasks of this unique network are: diplomatic relations with • to provide diplomatic protection 104 countries, official when required, such as when Order relations with 6 countries, activities are developed in countries T official representations and where the rule of law is less than fully permanent observer status guaranteed; at the United Nations, the European • to obtain customs and tax Union and numerous international exemption to cover medical supplies organisations, providing a unique and other goods essential in an diplomatic humanitarian network which emergency (where applicable following is both a demonstration of its the 1961 Vienna Convention on sovereignty and an operational instru - Diplomatic Relations, Art.36); ment for its humanitarian activities. • to promote cooperation with interna - Grand Chancellor Jean-Pierre Mazery tional organisations operating in the Diplomatic relations also mean unparal - field: the Order’s diplomatic representa - leled access, at the political level, to tions serve to initiate contact, to national governments and international conclude agreements or to resolve diffi - organisations. culties. There is an important operational link In the international political field, the between the Order’s diplomatic network Order of Malta is neutral, impartial and and its humanitarian activity and the non-political. Because of these charac - Order’s Embassies in different parts of teristics the Order can act as a the world are tasked with helping the mediator. medical and humanitarian activities of its national Associations, or of its worldwide relief service, Malteser International.

Grand Hospitaller Albrecht Boeselager

From 2007 to 2009 the Order of • Monaco 6 April 2007 Official relations Malta established diplomatic (maintained through a diplomatic • Canada 4 June 2008 relations with the following countries special mission) and international organisations: • Ukraine 9 February 2008 Multilateral relations • Bahamas 11 November 2008 • United Nations Environment Bilateral diplomatic relations • Sierra Leone 28 November 2008 Programme - UNEP - Nairobi, • Kenya 14 September 2007 • Namibia 31 March 2009 17 April 2009 • Turkmenistan 30 October 2007 • Antigua and Barbuda 20 October 2009

90 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA The Order’s diplomatic relations worldwide

THE ORDER OF MALTA HAS DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS WITH 104 COUNTRIES: EUROPE THE AMERICAS AFRICA Albania, Austria, Belarus, Bosnia- Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Bahamas, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Cap Vert, Central Africa, Chad, Comoros, Republic, Holy See, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Congo (Democratic Republic of the), Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Macedonia Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Congo (Republic of the), Côte d'Ivoire, (former Yugoslav Republic of), Malta, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, , Monaco*, Montenegro, Poland, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Saint Gabon, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Portugal, Romania, Russia (Federation Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Liberia, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, of)*, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Suriname, Uruguay, Venezuela. Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Slovenia, Spain, Ukraine. Namibia, Niger, Sao Tome and Principe, ASIA Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, * Relations with these countries are main - Afghanistan, Armenia, Cambodia, Georgia, Somalia, Sudan, Togo. tained through a diplomatic special mission. Jordan, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Philippines, Tajikistan, Thailand, Timor-Leste, OCEANIA Turkmenistan. Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Kiribati.

THE ORDER OF MALTA HAS OFFICIAL RELATIONS AT AMBASSADOR LEVEL WITH: • European Commission

THE ORDER OF MALTA HAS OFFICIAL RELATIONS WITH: • Belgium • France • Luxembourg • Canada • Germany • Switzerland

Multilateral relations

ORDER OF MALTA PERMANENT MISSIONS TO THE UNITED NATIONS AND ITS SPECIALISED AGENCIES: United Nations - New York Nations - WFP - Rome Human Rights - UNHCHR - Geneva United Nations - Geneva International Fund for Agricultural United Nations Industrial Development United Nations - Vienna Development - IFAD - Rome Organization - UNIDO - Vienna UNESCO - United Nations Educational, World Health Organisation - WHO - International Atomic Energy Agency - Science and Culture Organisation - Paris Geneva IAEA - Vienna Food and Agricultural Organization of United Nations High Commissioner for United Nations Environment Programme the United Nations - FAO - Rome Refugees - UNHCR - Geneva – UNEP – Nairobi World Food Programme of the United United Nations High Commissioner for

ORDER OF MALTA DELEGATIONS OR REPRESENTATIONS TO INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS: International Organisation for Migration Cross - ICRC - Geneva of Private Law - UNIDROIT - Rome - IOM - Geneva International Federation of Red Cross Unión Latina - Santo Domingo - Paris Council of Europe - Strasbourg and Red Crescent Societies – Geneva International Committee of Military Inter-American Development Bank - IDB International Institute of Humanitarian Medicine - ICMM - Brussels - Washington D.C. Law - Sanremo, Geneva International Committee of the Red International Institute for the Unification

GOVERNMENT 91 Cooperation Agreements signed between 2007 and 2009

EGYPT (30 January 2007) The Governorate of Qalyubiya, Upper Nile region, and the Italian Association of the Order of Malta sign a Cooperation Agreement in Cairo for humanitarian and healthcare collaboration at Abu Zabal Leprosy hospice.

CAMEROON (22 February 2007) The late Grand Master Fra’ Andrew Bertie visits the Mother and Child Center of the Chantal Biya Foundation during his Official Visit and learns of its humanitarian activities. The Grand Master and First Lady Chantal Biya sign a Partnership Agreement to strengthen cooperation ties between the Order and the Foundation.

BURKINA FASO (10 April 2007) In Ouagadougou the Government of Cooperation Agreement signed by the Grand Chancellor Jean-Pierre Mazery and the Burkina Faso and the Order of Malta Lebanese Foreign Minister Faouzi Salloukh. Beirut, 28 October 2009

Cooperation Agreement signed with the President of the European Commission, Brussels, 17 February 2009 The President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso and the Grand Master of the Order of Malta Fra’ Matthew Festing, together with the Order’s Grand Chancellor Jean-Pierre Mazery, signed an international cooperation Agreement, constituting the basis for developing an even stronger relationship between the Order of Malta and Europe.

The Agreement affirms that the European Commission and the Order of Malta emphasise the importance of their adherence to fundamental values and their common approach with partner countries based on the promotion of respect of human dignity, freedom, solidarity, justice and good governance, and that they will cooperate in the areas of: • assistance in emergency and post-crisis situations, including rehabilitation and development • medical and social assistance to persons involved in migration • support to local economic and social development • protection of victims of trafficking and other vulnerable groups • dissemination of international human rights • inter-cultural and inter-religious dialogue • sponsorship of seminars and workshops on topics of common interest.

92 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA sign a Frame Agreement in the humani - ITALY actions in the area of Milan and the tarian and healthcare field. (2 August 2007) possibility for the Order to use To promote a series of joint actions for equipment of the local Civil Protection POLAND fighting forest fires, help in protecting services. (14 May 2007) the territory and assisting victims of During the visit of the late Grand Master natural disasters, the Order of Malta’s ITALY Fra’ Andrew Bertie to Poland in 2007 a Italian Association and the Italian State (4 April 2008, renewed 8 April 2009) Health Cooperation agreement for Forestry Department sign a The Italian Association of the Order medical and hospital assistance is Memorandum of Understanding. signs with the Ministry of Internal signed. Affairs of the Italian Republic a With the Agreement, assistance CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC Cooperation Agreement for first aid to provided by the Order’s Association in (5 December 2007) immigrants in the area of the Straits of Poland for the poorest and most needy, In Bangui the Government of the Central Sicily, southern Italy. The Order’s terminal patients and the disabled, as African Republic and the Order of Malta doctors and volunteers actively collabo - well as collaboration for the develop - sign a Frame Agreement aiming to facil - rate with the Italian Coast Guard. ment of emergency and first aid, itate and improve the humanitarian is significantly enhanced. works of the Order, in particular in the ITALY Also signed: a Cooperation Agreement 17 dispensaries throughout the country. (26 May 2008) with the Sanctuary of Jasna Gòra The Italian Association signs a protocol in Czestochowa, to provide medical ITALY with the Autonomous Region of Valle equipment, medicines and training (28 January 2008) d’Aosta for the development of volunteer of first-aid personnel. The special relations between the Order groups of the Order of Malta. and the Italian Republic are confirmed ITALY in the signing in 2008 of protocols with LATVIA (16 May 2007) local regional authorities: 28 January (29 October 2008) The Italian Association of the Order and 2008 – the Italian Association of the On the occasion of the visit of the Grand the Italian Coast Guard sign an Order signs with the Municipality of Master Fra’ Matthew Festing to Latvia in Agreement to collaborate in emergency Milan for the collaboration of volunteers October 2008 a Memorandum of Intent and first-aid actions at sea. from the Order in the Civil Protection is signed with the Latvian Ministry of

CAMEROON (31 May 2007) Aid to Burkina Faso A Cooperation Convention to set up the The Agreement signed with Burkina general framework and guidelines for Faso has meant the Order was able to health care activities between the intervene promptly after torrential Republic of Cameroon and the Order is rain lashed the capital, Ouagadougou, signed. Objectives: reciprocal engage - in September 2009. The catastrophe ment to support and implement left many dead and 150,000 homeless. measures to facilitate, develop and First steps were to transport the diversify the social, humanitarian and injured to hospital, and at the request health cooperation in the country. of the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Social Affairs, the Order’s INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR first-aid team took care of injured MIGRATION (IOM) children and their families. Within (28 June 2007) hours, Ordre de Malte France and The Order of Malta and the International Malteser International - which worked Organization for Migration sign a together to provide emergency aid - Cooperation Agreement on emergency had sent two ambulances, a medical and post-emergency situations, team, supplies and basic necessities including reconstruction: the to the capital, set up a tent camp for provision of medical and social assis - 150 children and their mothers, tance to migrants, assistance and distributed water and food, and turned protection for victims of traffickers, the delivery trucks into first-aid and the promotion of human rights at stations staffed by nurses, rescuers an international level and Burkina Faso volunteer doctors. Order of Malta medical team in action, Burkina Faso

GOVERNMENT 93 Welfare to foster cooperation between BENIN VATICAN CITY STATE the Order of Malta and Latvia. (14 December 2008) (15th December 2008) The document diversifies cooperation In Cotonou the Government of Benin and A Memorandum of Understanding, in the social, humanitarian and health the Order of Malta sign a Framework signed in 1994, is renewed for the third assistance fields and defines the Agreement. The purpose is to facilitate time, by the Director of Health and framework and guidelines for further the works of the French Association, in Hygiene of the Governatorate of Vatican development of relations. particular in the Hospital in Djougou, City State and the Grand Hospitaller of the largest city in north west Benin. the Sovereign Order of Malta. To date from 1 January 2009, it regulates the cooperation with the Vatican Health Order’s First Aid Post in St Peter’s Square Services of volunteers of the Order of Since the 1975 Jubilee, the Order has been operating a first-aid post in St. Peter’s Malta at the Order’s First Aid Post in Square. Now in its 36th year, and equipped with an ambulance car, an electric- St. Peter’s Square. powered stretcher and first aid and medical supplies, the post offers continuous service every Wednesday and Sunday, the days of the Pope’s public audiences, as EUROPEAN COMMISSION well as whenever there are special ceremonies presided over by the Holy . (17 February 2009) A Memorandum of Understanding signed in 1994 and renewed for the third time on (see box page 92) 1 January 2009 by the Director of Health and Hygiene of the Governatorate of the Vatican City State and the Grand Hospitaller of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta BELARUS continues the cooperation with the Vatican Health Services of 30 Order volunteers, (28 April 2009) coordinated by an anaesthetist. Today the volunteers serve in St. Peter’s Square, in The Order’s Embassy in the Republic of the Paul VI Hall and in the Basilica itself. Belarus and the Minsk Region Executive In 2009 over 300 people were treated at the post, the majority in the 41-60 age Committee for Cooperation in the group, slightly more women than men, and the overwhelming majority coming from Humanitarian Sphere, with a common Europe, although there were also a number of patients representing all the world’s interest in the protection and care of continents. orphan children, sign in Rome a The Order’s national Associations have fond memories of their own first-aid teams Memorandum to facilitate humanitarian participating during the Holy Year of 2000, when volunteer teams from every aid from the Order to the disadvantaged Association took turns to man the post for the entire year. The Relief Corps of the children of the region of Minsk. Italian Association also offered continuous service for the tumultuous and emotional week in April 2005 when millions of mourners came to pay their last respects to CHAD Pope John Paul II. (18 June 2009) In Ndjamena the Government of Chad and the Order of Malta sign a Cooperation Agreement to facilitate and foster humanitarian works and projects of the Order in the country.

LEBANON (28 October 2009) During the official visit of the Grand Master in Lebanon a Cooperation agreement for humanitarian and health issues was signed by the Order¹s Grand Chancellor Jean-Pierre Mazery and the Lebanese Foreign Minister Faouzi Salloukh.

TIMOR-LESTE (16 November 2009) The Order’s Embassy in the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste and the Ministry of Health signed a Cooperation Agreement for the rehabilitation of the Timor-Leste Ambulance Service. Fra’ Matthew Festing visits the Order’s First Aid Post in St. Peter’s Square, Rome, February 2009

94 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA Postal Agreements

From 2008 to 2009 the Order of Malta signed postal agreements with the Postal Agreement signed with the Vatican City State, Vatican 24 June 2008 following countries: The agreement with which the Vatican City State recognises the full validity of • Vatican City State 24 June 2008 stamps issued by the Order of Malta was signed in the Vatican on 24 June 2008.

• Montenegro 23 February 2009 Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, President of the Governorate, and Jean-Pierre Mazery, Grand Chancellor of the Order of Malta, signed the convention that • Belarus 28 April 2009 extended the centuries-old relationship between the Order of Malta and the Vatican to postal services.

Two commemorative stamps were issued: the Order of Malta issued a stamp bearing the Vatican City State coat-of-arms in colour; the Vatican City issued a stamp depicting the Sovereign Order’s emblem.

The Vatican City State convention is the 53rd country with which the Sovereign Order has signed agreements for the circulation of mail bearing its stamps.

Commemorative stamp, postal convention with Vatican City State

Grand Chancellor Jean-Pierre Mazery and Belarus Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Martynov sign the Postal Agreement

GOVERNMENT 95 Flags

The State Flag The Flag of the Order’s works The Flag of His Highness the Grand The red rectangular flag with the white The red flag with eight-pointed white Master latin cross is the State flag of the cross is the flag of the Order’s works. The red flag with white eight-pointed Sovereign Military Order of Malta. The eight-pointed cross has been used cross encircled by the Collar and Called the flag of St. John, it has been in the Order as long as the latin cross, surmounted by a crown is the personal used since ancient times. Giuseppe and stems from the Order’s ancient flag of the Grand Master. It flies over the Bosio’s “History of the Order “ (1589), links with the Republic of Amalfi. Magistral Palace and the Order’s records that in 1130 Pope Innocent II Its present form dates back over 400 Magistral seats when he is in residence. had decreed that “…Religion in war years; the first clear reference to an should bear a standard with a white eight-pointed cross was its representa - cross on a red field”. Following Pope tion on the coins of Grand Master Alexander IV’s Bull of 1259 permitting Fra’ Foulques de Villaret (1305-1319). the Knights in war to wear a red mantle This is the flag flown by the Order’s bearing a white cross, the Order began Grand Priories and Sub-Priories, its 47 to make systematic use of the latin National Associations and over 100 cross as its emblem. In 1291, the Order diplomatic missions around the world. left the Holy Land for Cyprus where its It also flies over hospitals, medical sea faring vocation flourished and from centres and out-patients’ departments, that time onwards, the knightly standard as well as wherever the Order of Malta’s was flown over their ships for the next ambulance corps, foundations and six centuries. Today the State flag flies specialised units operate. over the Order’s Magistral Palace in Rome and accompanies the Grand Master and members of the Sovereign Council on official visits.

96 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA Emblems

The Arms of the Order of Malta The Emblem of the Order’s works The Coat of Arms of the 79th Prince The Order’s arms display the eight- The emblem is the symbol of the Order and Grand Master Fra’ Matthew Festing pointed latin cross on a red oval field of Malta’s medical and humanitarian The arms of Grand Master Fra’ Matthew surrounded by a and surmounted activities worldwide. It is a red shield Festing are quartered with those of the by the princely mantle and crown with a white, eight-pointed cross Order. (as described in Article 6 of the Order’s (as described in Article 242 of the At 1 and 4 gules (red) a cross argent; Constitutional Charter). It is the emblem Order’s Code). at 2 and 3 azure an eagle displayed of the Sovereign Order’s Grand Magistry erminois between three castles argent. and its Institutions: the Grand Priories, The arms are surrounded by the Collar, Sub-Priories, National Associations and symbol of the Grand Master, within a Diplomatic Missions. princely mantle and surmounted by a closed crown.

Names of the Order

Since its foundation 960 years ago, Malta, Sovereign Order of Malta, or Order After conquering the island of Rhodes in many names have been used to identify of Malta - are often used for legal, diplo - 1310, they became the Knights of the Order and its members. This can be matic or communication purposes. Rhodes . In 1530, the Emperor Charles V explained by its nine centuries of ceded the island of Malta to the Knights. eventful life and in particular because The knights were initially called the Since then the Order’s members are the Knights have often been forced to (or Hospitallers ) to commonly referred to as the Knights of move from countries where they once describe their mission. But they were Malta . played a leading role. also called the Knights of St John because of the Order’s patron saint, To protect this heritage, the Order of The official name of the Order of Malta St. John Baptist, and also of Jerusalem Malta has legally registered 16 versions is the Sovereign Military Hospitaller because of their presence in the Holy of its names and emblems in some 100 Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Land. Also used in the past was the term countries. Rhodes and of Malta . Abbreviations of The Religion to emphasise the charac - the name - Sovereign Military Order of teristic of religious .

GOVERNMENT 97 The Grand Magistry Library and Archives Small team, big steps

he Library of the Grand stamped and each has an anti-theft The collection covers history, statutes, Magistry currently includes device which sounds if a book is diaries. 8,000 are on the Order of between 18,000 and 20,000 removed, unauthorised, from the Malta, as well as categories of heraldry, T volumes, 30,000 photo - Library. genealogy and history. Additionally, graphs, hundreds of maps, there is a special collection – the John prints and postcards. Over THE COLLECTION James Watts collection - 400 books on the last six years, it has been restored, Of the collection itself, 11,000 titles of genealogy, heraldry and history, some vacuumed, acid-protected, anti-theft the total held have already been cata - very rare. The collector was a founder protected – and rendered computer logued and work continues apace. member of the British Association. friendly. The library is the cultural point of reference on the Order of Malta.

How did all this come about? Fra’ Elie de Comminges, who heads up this treasure trove, has, with his dedicated staff, wrought astonishing changes. He describes what has been achieved so far as “renovations and restorations”. The first tasks undertaken by Fra’ Elie and his staff were to start a digital catalogue and to treat the oldest manuscripts to preserve them. Then all the Bulls were restored and are now stored flat. They have all been cata - logued and digitised. All these treasures were first cleaned. Then, the move from the old card catalogue to the catalogue online; and currently everything is being digitised. All the folders with archival material are being treated and moved from acidic to non-acidic boxes. A reference section has been estab - lished. The Library is now open stacks, with access to everything except the rare book collection. And every reading table in the new Reading Room has computer connections.

Books before 1830 need a unique identi - fication (‘signatures’ or a ‘fingerprint’) – because sometimes in the same edition there will be different fingerprints. The books in the collection are random Fra’ Elie de Comminges and his team

98 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA 15,000 photographs have also been catalogued, with another 15,000 to go and all the prints and maps have been catalogued.

The Library has an agreement with the University of St. John in Minnesota to put all archival material on the internet. (The Order’s catalogue is accessible through the Grand Magistry website, Library and Archives section.)

SPECIAL MATERIAL Fra’ Elie summarises some of the special material: “The oldest material in the Library is a Bull dated 1332 and signed by Pope John XXII. Also among the collection are Bulls signed by Emperor Charles V. The oldest book about the Order in the collection is an incunabulum which includes woodcuts: a History of the , dated February 1485, by Caoursin (binding is 19th century). There is a Breviary of the Order, dated 1510: of the 6 or 7 in the The Magistral library world, the only complete one known is in Ulm. The Order’s edition - kept in a historian of the Order in the 18th Half of the extensive archives are special, non-acidic box to preserve it - is century and Fra’ Elie is building a already in a conservation area of more complete than the example held in collection of the editions of his History. compact stacks covering approximately France’s Bibliotheque Nationale.” And there is a collection of postcards of 600 linear metres, out of a total of 1.5 Of special interest, too, is the History of Fort Sant’Angelo – some old, some kilometres. They are climate-controlled, the Order by Abbe’ de Vertot, the great black and white, some in colour. as is the Library itself.

THE TEAM AT WORK Fra’ Elie and his small, highly profes - sional team achieve great things. And there is still much to be done. Between them, they work in English, French, Italian, Latin and Spanish. There are also Agreements in place with La Sapienza, University of Rome, for an internship programme and with the Ecole des Chartres, who send interns for a ‘stage’ in the summer months.

This unique resource is frequented by a wide variety of researchers – from members of the Order, to genealogists, historians, journalists and students.

And Fra’ Elie’s favourite items in this exceptional collection? “My favourites?” He pauses. “Everything!”

Among the collection: Schedel’s Liber Crochnicarum , 1493, noted for its numerous illustrations

GOVERNMENT 99 960 years of history

three monastic vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. The constitution of the regarding the obliged the Order to take on the military defence of the sick, the pilgrims and the territories that the

1048 - Jerusalem naval force. Thus the Order built a The birth of the Order dates back to powerful fleet and sailed the Eastern around 1048. Merchants from the Mediterranean, fighting many famous ancient Marine Republic of Amalfi battles for the sake of Christendom . obtained from the Caliph of Egypt the From its beginning, the independence authorisation to build a church, convent from other nations granted by Pontifical and hospital in Jerusalem, to care for deed, and the universally recognised pilgrims of any religious faith or race. crusaders had conquered from the right to maintain and deploy armed The Order of St. John of Jerusalem - the Moslems. The Order thus added the task forces, constitute the grounds for the monastic community that ran the of defending the faith to that of its international sovereignty of the Order. hospital for the pilgrims in the Holy hospitaller mission. As time went on, In the early 14th century the institutions Land - became independent under the the Order adopted the white eight- of the Order and the knights who came guidance of its founder, Blessed Gérard. pointed Cross that is still its symbol to Rhodes from every corner of Europe With the Bull of 15 February 1113, today. were grouped according to the Pope Paschal II approved the foundation languages they spoke. There were of the Hospital and placed it under the 1310 - Rhodes initially seven groups of Langues aegis of the Holy See, granting it the When the last Christian stronghold in (Tongues): Provence, Auvergne, France, right to freely elect its superiors without the Holy Land fell in 1291, the Order Italy, Aragon (Navarre), England (with interference from other secular or settled first in Cyprus and then, in 1310, and Ireland) and Germany. In religious authorities. By virtue of the led by Grand Master Fra' Foulques de 1492 Castille and Portugal split off from , the Hospital became an Villaret, on the island of Rhodes. the Langue of Aragon and constituted Order exempt from the Church. All the From then, the defence of the Christian the eighth Langue. Each Langue Knights were religious, bound by the world required the organisation of a included Priories or Grand Priories, and Commanderies. 1571 - The The Order was governed by its Grand The fleet of the Order, then one of the Master (the Prince of Rhodes) and most powerful in the Mediterranean, Council, minted its own money and contributed to the ultimate destruction maintained diplomatic relations with of the Ottoman naval power in the Battle other States. The senior positions of the of Lepanto in 1571. Order were given to representatives of different Langues. The seat of the Order, the Convent, was composed of religious of various nationalities.

1798 - In exile The 20th Two hundred years later, in 1798, and 21st Century Bonaparte occupied the island The original 1530 - Malta for its strategic value during his hospitaller mission After six months of siege and fierce Egyptian campaign. Because of the became once again combat against the fleet and army of Order’s Rule prohibiting them to raise the main activity of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, the weapons against other Christians, the the Order, growing Knights were forced to surrender in 1523 knights were forced to leave Malta. ever stronger during the last century, and left Rhodes with military honours. Although the sovereign rights of the most especially because of the contribu - The Order remained without a territory Order in the island of Malta had been tion of the activities carried out by the of its own until 1530, when Grand Master reaffirmed by the Treaty of Amiens Grand Priories and National Fra' Philippe de Villiers de l'Isle (1802), the Order has never been able to Associations in so many countries took possession of the island of Malta, return to Malta. around the world. Large-scale hospi - granted to the Order by Emperor taller and charitable activities were Charles V with the approval of Pope 1834 - Rome carried out during World Wars I and II. Clement VII. It was established that the After having temporarily resided in Under the Grand Masters Fra’ Angelo de Order should remain neutral in any war Messina, Catania and Ferrara, in 1834 Mojana di Cologna (1962-1988) and Fra' between Christian nations. In 1565 the the Order settled definitively in Rome, Andrew Bertie (1988-2008), the projects Knights, led by Grand Master Fra' Jean where it owns, with extraterritoriality expanded until they reached the further - de la Vallette (after whom the capital of status, the Magistral Palace in Via most regions of the planet. Malta, Valletta, was named), defended Condotti 68 and the Magistral Villa on the island for more than three months the . during the Great Siege by the Turks. Addresses

GRAND PRIORIES, SUB-PRIORIES Belgium BRASILIA AND OF NORTERN BRAZIL AND NATIONAL ASSOCIATIONS BELGIAN ASSOCIATION ASSOCIATION President: Prince Baudoin de Merode President: Senator Marco Antonio de Argentina Avenue Huart Hamoir, 43 Oliveira Maciel ARGENTINE ASSOCIATION BE – 1030 Bruxelles / Belgium Av. Boa Viagem, 4160 President: Manuel Ignacio Adroguè T +32 2 2523072 Edf. Tiradentes, ap.1002 Av. Santa Fè 1379 – 1° Piso F +32 2 2525930 Barrio Boa Viagem C1059ABH Buenos Aires / Argentina malta.belgium @skynet.be 51021-000 Recife – PE / Brazil T +54 11 48122882 www.ordredemaltebelgique.org marco.maciel @senador.gov.br F +54 11 48123313 www.ordevanmaltabelgie.org info @ordendemaltaargentina.org Canada www.ordendemaltaargentina.org Bolivia CANADIAN ASSOCIATION BOLIVIAN ASSOCIATION President: Peter Gerard Quail Australia President: Juan Carlos Quiroga Matos 1247, Kilborn Place – Room # 330 SUB-PRIORY OF THE IMMACULTE Calle Andrés S. Muñoz, 2564 ON K1H 6K9 Ottawa / Canada CONCEPTION Nuestra Señora de la Paz / Bolivia T +1 (613) 731 8897 Regent: Sir James Gobbo T +591 224 13065 F +1 (613) 731 1312 8/25 Douglas Street F +591 221 21121 wgs @bellnet.ca 3142 Toorak / Australia jcquiroga @airteambolivia.com www.orderofmaltacanada.org T +61 (3) 9349 9013 diversity @sirjamesgobbo.id.au Brazil Chile BRAZILIAN ASSOCIATION OF RIO DE CHILEAN ASSOCIATION AUSTRALIAN ASSOCIATION JANEIRO President: Don Raúl Irarrazabal President: Antony John McDermott President: Jorge Alberto Costa e Silva Covarrubias Macken Mosteiro de São Bento Otoñal 1226 11th Floor, 53 Queen Street Rua Dom Gerardo, 68 Las Condes – Santiago de Chile / Chile Melbourne, Victoria 3000 / Australia RJ 20090-030 Rio de Janeiro / Brazil T +56 2 2344575 T +61 (3) 96144899 T +55 21 25392196 F +56 2 2339115 F +61 (3) 96293542 F +55 21 22333342 rirarrazabal @tie.cl admin @smom.org.au jacs @vetor.com.br www.ordendemalta.cl www.smom.org.au SÃO PAULO AND SOUTHERN BRAZIL Colombia Austria ASSOCIATION COLOMBIAN ASSOCIATION GRAND PRIORY OF AUSTRIA President: Dino Samaja President: Don José Román Fernandez Procurateur: Norbert Graf und Herr von Centro Assistencial Cruz de Malta Gonzalez Salburg – Falkenstein Rua Orlando Murgel, 161 Carrera 9, N° 80-15, Oficina 802 Johannesgasse, 2 04358-090 São Paulo / Brazil Bogota D.C. / Colombia A 1010 Wien / Austria T +55 11 5581 0944 T +57 1 5314182 T +43 (1) 5127244 F +55 11 5594 4780 F +57 1 2100167 F +43 (1) 5139290 cruzdemalta @amcham.com.br info @orderofmaltacolombia.org smom @malteser.at www.cruzdemalta.org.br www.orderofmaltacolombia.org www.malteserorden.at

102 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA Costa Rica El Salvador BRITISH ASSOCIATION COSTA RICA ASSOCIATION EL SALVADOR ASSOCIATION President: Charles Weld President: Don Enrique Granados President: Pedro Andrés Houdelot 58, Grove End Road Moreno Boulevard Orden de Malta, 3 London NW8 - 9NE / Great Britain Curridabat, la Nopalera, de la POPS, 300 Urb. Santa Elena, Antiguo Cuscatlán T +44 20 7286 1414 mts al sur y 175 mts al Oeste La Libertad / El Salvador F +44 20 7289 3243 Curridabat – Ciudad de San José / Costa C.A. Apartado Postal: 42 Santa Tecla basmom @btconnect.com Rica T +503 2526 0500 www.orderofmalta.org.uk T +506 234 6726 F +503 2526 0513 F +506 221 3160 info @ordendemalta.org.sv Guatemala engramo @gmail.com GUATEMALAN ASSOCIATION France President: Don José Hegel Giron Cuba FRENCH ASSOCIATION Finca Labor de Castilla CUBAN ASSOCIATION President: Dominique, Prince and Count Km. 19 carretera a La Antigua President: Don Fernando Tomás Garc ía- de La Rochefoucauld-Montbel Zona 9, Mixco Chac ón y Chac ón, Marqués de Salinas 42, rue des Volontaires Ciudad de Guatemala / Guatemala Suite 300 ARC Professional Center 75015 Paris / France T +502 4344962 2950 Southwest 27th Avenue T +33 (0)1 4520 9614 +502 4345097 Miami, Florida 33133 / USA F +33 (0)1 4520 0013 F +502 4344960 T +1 (786) 888 6494 associationfrancaise @ maltagua @terra.com.gt F +1 (305) 285 0900 ordredemaltefrance.org garciachacon @bellsouth.net www.ordredemaltefrance.org Honduras www.ordendemaltacuba.com HONDURAS ASSOCIATION Germany President: Antonio José Coello Czech Republic SUB-PRIORY OF ST. MICHEL Bobadilla GRAND PRIORY OF BOHEMIA Regent: Johannes Freiherr Heereman c/o Comercial Pecas S.A., Edificio Grand Prior: Ven. Balì Fra' Carl E. Paar von Zuydtwyck Quinchon Leon Velkoprevorske namesti 4 – Mala Strana Kalker-Haupstraße, 22-24 Tegucigalpa M.D.C. / Honduras C.A. CZ - 118 00 Praha 1 / Czech Republic 51103 Koln / Germany T +504 237 5503 T +420 257 530 824/76 T +49 (0) 221 9822 101 F +504 237 8114 F +420 257 535 995 F +49 (0) 221 9822 109 ordendemaltahonduras @gmail.com smom @mbox.vol.cz johannes.heereman @maltanet.de Hungary Dominican Republic GERMAN ASSOCIATION HUNGARIAN ASSOCIATION DOMINICAN ASSOCIATION President: Erich Prinz von Lobkowicz President: György de O’Svath President: Marino A. Ginebra Hurtado Burgstraße 10 Fortuna utca 10 Calle Dr. Gilberto Gómez Rodríguez 36 D 53505 Kreuzberg / Germany H-1014 Budapest / Hungary Edif. Corporatión América, T +49 (0) 2 643 2038 T / F +36 (1) 3755174 Ensanche Naco F +49 (0) 2 643 2393 mmlsz @t-online.hu Santo Domingo / Dominican Republic info @malteserorden.de T +1 809 476 0010 www.malteser.de Ireland F +1 809 567 8909 SUB-PRIORY OF ST. OLIVER PLUNKETT mginebra @amhsamarina.com Great Britain Vice-Regent: Peter Smithwick GRAND PRIORY OF ENGLAND St. John's House Ecuador Grand Prior: Fra' Fredrik Crichton – 32, Clyde Road ECUADOR ASSOCIATION Stuart Dublin 4 / Ireland President: Don José Mari Perez Arteta 6 Raeburn Mews T +353 (1) 6140031 P.O. Box 1707 9302 – Quito / Ecuador Edinburgh EH4 - 1RG / Scotland F +353 (1) 6685288 T +593 (22) 239606 T +44 131 343 3516 sub-priory @orderofmalta.ie +593 (22) 431704 frafredriksmom @aol.com F +593 (22) 567194 www.orderofmalta.org.uk jperez @pbplaw.com

ADDRESSES 103 IRISH ASSOCIATION Lebanon Nicaragua President: Sir Adrian James Fitzgerald LEBANESE ASSOCIATION NICARAGUA ASSOCIATION St. John’s House President: Marwan Sehnaoui Magistral Commissioner: 32, Clyde Road P.O. Box: 11-4286 Beyrouth / Lebanon Alberto J. McGregor Lopez Dublin 4 / Ireland T +961 (1) 492244/55 Apt.do 3491 – km 4 Carretera Sur T +353 (1) 6140031 F +961 (1) 492266 Managua / Nicaragua F +353 (1) 6685288 marwan @sehnaoui.org T +505 (2) 660014 chancellery @orderofmalta.ie F +505 (2) 660015 www.orderofmalta.ie Malta imcgrego @ibw.com.ni MALTESE ASSOCIATION Italy President: Philip Farrugia Randon Panama GRAND-PRIORY OF ROME Casa Lanfreducci PANAMA ASSOCIATION Grand Prior: Ven. Balì Fra' Giacomo 2, Victory Square President: Julio Cesar Contreras III Dalla Torre del Tempio di Sanguinetto VLT 1104 Valletta / Malta Calle Elvira Méndez Nº10, Edificio Banco Piazza dei Cavalieri di Malta, 4 T +356 21 226919 do Brasil 00153 Roma / Italy +356 21 246406 Ciudad de Panamá / Republic of Panama T +39 06 5779193 F +356 21 226918 T +507 265 3411 F +39 06 5758351 info @orderofmalta-malta.org F +507 264 4569 granprioratodiroma @orderofmalta.org www.orderofmalta-malta.org anc @anorco.com.pa www.ordinedimaltaitalia.org Mexico Paraguay GRAND-PRIORY OF LOMBARDY AND MEXICAN ASSOCIATION PARAGUAYAN ASSOCIATION VENICE Vice-President: Don Enrique H. Curzio President: Arnaldo Acosta Procurator: Barone Silvio Goffredo Gonzales Avenida Mariscal Lopez, 2307 Martelli Liverpool 25, Col. Juárez Asunción / Paraguay – Castello 3253 C.P. 06600 / Mexico D.F. T +595 21 602 582 30122 Venezia / Italy T +52 55 5705 0350/80 aarnaldoacosta @tigo.com.py T +39 041 5222452 F +52 55 5535 5257 F +39 041 5209955 direcciongeneral @ordendemal - Peru smomve @smomve.org tamexico.org PERUVIAN ASSOCIATION www.smomve.org www.ordendemaltamexico.org President: Don Fernando de Trazegnies y Granda, Marquis de Torrebermeja GRAND-PRIORY OF NAPLES AND Monaco El Haras 166 SICILY MONEGASQUE ASSOCIATION La Molina, Lima 12 / Peru Procurator: Fra' Luigi Naselli di Gela President: René Croesi T +51 1 479 1236 Via del Priorato, 17 Eglise Saint-Charles F +51 1 368 0106 80135 Napoli / Italy 10 avenue Saint-Charles ordendemalta.peru @gmail.com T +39 081 5640891 MC 98000 Monte-Carlo / Principality of F +39 081 5498540 Monaco Philippines segreteria @ordinedimaltanapoli.org T +377 98984141 PHILIPPINE ASSOCIATION www.ordinedimaltaitalia.org F +377 93251334 President: Don Ernesto Baltazar Rufino r.croesi @monaco.mc Pius XII – Catholic Center ITALIAN ASSOCIATION 1175, United Nations Avenue Magistral Commissioner: Narciso Salvo, Netherlands 1007 Manila / Philippines Marchese di Pietraganzili DUTCH ASSOCIATION T +63 (2) 536 4795 Casa dei Cavalieri di Rodi President: Baron Berend Jan Marie van F +63 (2) 525 5302 Piazza del Grillo, 1 Voorst tot Voorst smomphil @philonline.com I - 00184 Roma / Italy 14, Nieuwegracht T +39 06 678 1518 3512 LR Utrecht / Netherlands Poland +39 06 655 96437 T +31 30 2314615 POLISH ASSOCIATION F +39 06 699 23344 ordevanmalta @planet.nl President: Andrzej Potworowski presidenza @acismom.it www.ordevanmalta.nl Ul. Jazgarzewska 17 www.ordinedimaltaitalia.org 00 730 Warsaw / Poland T +48 22 6176354 kontakt @zakonmaltanski.pl www.zakonmaltanski.pl

104 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA Portugal Slovenia SUB-PRIORY OF OUR LADY OF PORTUGUESE ASSOCIATION SLOVENIAN ASSOCIATION LOURDES President: Dom Augusto Duarte de President: Peter Vencelj Regent: Joseph G. Metz Andrade Albuquerque Bettencourt de Glavni trg 1 1011 First Avenue – Room 1350 Athayde, Comte de Albuquerque 4000 Kranj / Slovenia New York Igreja de Santa Luzia e São Brás T +386 (0)4 236 8181 NY 10022-4112 / USA Largo de Santa Luzia peter.vencelj @fmf.uni-lj.si T +1 (212) 371 1522 1100-487 Lisboa / Portugal F +1 (212) 486 9427 T +351 (21) 888 1303 Spain elissaandjoe @aol.com F +351 (21) 888 1302 SUB-PRIORY OF ST GEORGES AND ST. ordemdemalta @gmail.com JAMES AMERICAN ASSOCIATION Regent: Don José Maria Moreno de President: Joseph H. Miller Romania Barreda y Moreno 1011 First Avenue – Room 1350 ROMANIAN ASSOCIATION Calle Flora, 3 – E-28013 Madrid / Spain New York Magistral Commissioner: Franz Alfred T +34 91 5417065 NY 10022-4112 / USA Reichsgraf von Hartig F +34 91 5417134 T +1 (212) 371 1522 4-8, Blvd. Nicolae Titulescu cancilleria @ordendemaltasubpriorato.org F +1 (212) 486 9427 America House, 7° et. jtrexler @maltausa.org Bucarest 011141 / Romania SPANISH ASSOCIATION www.maltausa.org T +40 21 208 58 00 President: Don Gonzalo Crespi de F +40 21 208 58 01 Valldaura y Bosch-Labrus, Conde de WESTERN ASSOCIATION brindusa.theodor @snt.ro Orgaz President: William V. Regan III Calle Flora, 3 – E-28013 Madrid / Spain 465 California Street – Suite 818 T +34 91 5417065 San Francisco SCANDINAVIAN ASSOCIATION F +34 91 5417134 CA 94104-1820 / USA President: Prince Andreas von und zu cancilleria @ordendemalta.es T +1 (415) 788 4550 Liechtenstein www.ordendemalta.es F +1 (415) 291 0422 Hedvigsberg, Box 62 john @orderofmaltawest.com SE 17802 Drottningholm / Sweden Switzerland www.orderofmaltausawestern.org T +46 87590655 SWISS ASSOCIATION F +46 87590020 President: Gilles de Weck FEDERAL ASSOCIATION president @malteserorden.se 28A, ch. du Petit-Saconnex President: J.Paul McNamara 1209 Genève / Switzerland 1730 M Street, N.W. – Suite 403 Senegal T + 41 22 733 2252 Washington, D.C. 20036 / USA SENEGALESE ASSOCIATION F + 41 22 734 0060 T +1 (202) 331 2494 President: Alöyse Raymond Ndiaye info @ordredemaltesuisse.org F +1 (202) 331 1149 Villa n 22, Rue de Thiès Point E www.ordredemaltesuisse.org pklaes @orderofmalta-federal.org Dakar / Senegal www.orderofmalta-federal.org T +221 33 824 3651 Uruguay F +221 33 822 6221 URUGUAYAN ASSOCIATION Venezuela ordremalte @orange.sn President: Santiago Fonseca Muñoz VENEZUELAN ASSOCIATION Plaza de Cagancha 1129 Vice-President: Ramon Eduardo Tello Singapour C. P. 11100 / Uruguay Av. Los Pinos, Quinta n. 45 SINGAPORE ASSOCIATION T +598 2 908 9829 Urb. La Florida President: Michael Khoo Kah Lip F +598 2 909 0012 Caracas / Venezuela Mount Elizabeth Medical Center cancilleria @ordendemaltauruguay.org.uy T +58 212 7307153 Medical and Oncology Clinic, 15th Floor www.ordendemaltauruguay.org.uy F +58 212 7311243 3, Mount Elizabeth reta.llanera @gmail.com Singapore 228510 / Singapour USA T +65 67340330 SUB-PRIORY OF OUR LADY OF F +65 7370207 PHILERMO gabrieloon39 @gmail.com Regent: Wade Corradine Hughan 1182 Market Street – Suite 400 San Francisco CA 94102-4922 / USA wchughan @barlowandhughan.com

ADDRESSES 105 RELIEF CORPS Nigeria STATES WITH WHICH THE ORDER RELIEF CORPS HAS DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS MALTESER INTERNATIONAL OF THE ORDER OF MALTA ORDER OF MALTA WORLDWIDE RELIEF President: Sir Dr. Christian Ogbuokiri Afghanistan President: Nicolas de Cock de Rameyen Diocese Orlu, P.O. 430 H. E. … : Kalker Hauptstrasse 22 Imo State/Nigeria Ambassador Extraordinary and 51103 Köln / Germany T +234 803 759 9259 Plenipotentiary T + 49 (0) 2 21 98 22 151 maltesernigeria2000 @yahoo.co.uk F + 49 (0) 2 21 98 22 179 Albania info @malteser-international.org Russia H. E. Günther A. Granser www.malteser-international.org MALTESKAJA SLUGBA POMOSCHI Ambassador Extraordinary and KALININGRADSKAJA OBLAST Plenipotentiary Albania Beroswaja 5 Chancery: Rogner Europapark, Suite MALTESER-NDIHMON NE SHQIPERI RUS-238960 Rasdolnoje / Russia N°425 (MNSH) T +7 0115 666 537 Bvd. Deshmoret e Kombit President: Rev. Mgr. Lucjan Avgustini, malteser @gazinter.net Tirana / Albania Bishop of Sape T / F +355 4 2223636 Lagja Perlat Rexhepi Serbia amb.smom.alb @rogner.com Rruga Ludovik Saraçi, 6 MALTESKA DOBROTVORNA ORGANI - amb.smom @oier.eu Shkoder / Albania ZACIJA JUGOSLAVIJE (MDOJ) T +355 245 0446 Director: Szollösy Gyorgy Angola F +355 245 0447 Trg. Slobode, 4 H. E. António Maria de Mello info @mnsh.org 23001 Zrenjanin / Serbia Ambassador Extraordinary and www.mnsh.org T +381 23 61317 Plenipotentiary mdoj @mgnet.co.yu Chancery: Rua 1º de Maio, 124 Croatia 1300-474 Lisboa / Portugal UDRUGA MALTESER HRVRATSKA Slovakia antonio.mello @tecnidata.pt President: Count Georg Eltz Vukovarski ORGANIZACIE ZBOR DOBROVOL’NIKOV Miramarska, 24 MALTEZSKEHO RADU V SLOVENSKEJ Antigua and Barbuda 1000 Zagreb / Croatia REPUBLIKE H.E. Przemyslaw Häuser T +385 1 6005618 President: Anton Safarik Ambassador Extraordianry and F +385 1 6005616 Kapitulská 9 Plenipotentiary hms-croatia @net.hr SK - 811 01 Bratislava / Slovakia Chancery: Calle 182, N.115, e/1ra y 5ta T / F +421 2 54131296 Reparto Flores Lithuania slovak.volunteers @orderofmalta.org Playa 11300 La Habana / Cuba MALTOS ORDINO PAGALBOS TARNYBA T / F +53 72723350 President: Kazimieras Sceponavicius South Africa havemb @ordinedimalta.com Gedimino pr. 56 B BROTHERHOOD OF BLESSED GERARD LT - 01110 Vilnius / Lithuania President: Rev. P. Gérard Tonque Argentina T +370 52498604 Lagleder H. E. Antonio Manuel Caselli F +370 52497463 P.O. Box 440 Ambassador Extraordinary and maltos.ordinas @gmail.com Mandeni 4490 / South Africa Plenipotentiary www.maltieciai.lt T +27 (32) 4562743 Chancery: Av. Alicia Moreau de Justo info @bbg.org.za 1930, 1° pl. Luxembourg www.bbg.org.za C 1107 AFN Buenos Aires / Argentina PREMIER SECOURS DE DE T +54 11 4516 0034/5 MALTE (ASBL) Ukraine F +54 11 4516 0037 President: Kent Johansson MALTIJSKA SLUSHBA DOPOMOHY embajada @embamalta.org.ar Institut Saint Jean Director: Pavlo Titko 110, avenue Gaston Diderich Wul.Akad.Bogomolza 8/2 L - 1420 Luxembourg 79005 Lvlv / Ukraine T / F +352 444979 T +380 32 275 1200 croixdemalte @pt.lu malteser @malteser.lviv.ua www.malteser.lviv.ua

106 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA Armenia Benin Burkina Faso H.E. Jean-Michel Oughourlian Daniel Inchelin H. E. Count Alain de Parcevaux Ambassador Extraordianry and First Consellor Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Chancery: 06 B.P. 2655 RP Plenipotentiary 16 rue Piccini Cotonou / Benin Chancery: 75116 Paris / France T +229 21331184 Bobo - Dioulasso / Burkina Faso T +33 0145002897 jfmkilgl @intnet.bj P.O. Box: 01 BP 3404 h.oughourlian @wanadoo.fr T +226 20 972631 Bolivia ohfom_burkina @hotmail.com Austria H. E. Mauro Bertero Gutierrez H. E. Alessandro Quaroni Ambassador Extraordinary and Cambodia Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary H. E. Michael Mann Plenipotentiary Chancery: Av. 20 de Octubre, n. 1963 Ambassador Extraordinary and Chancery: 2, Johannesgasse Edificio EMUSA, 3° piso Plenipotentiary A 1010 Wien / Austria La Paz / Bolivia Apartment 8 C/D – Baan Aananda 52 T +43 1 512 7244 T +591 22 423707 Sukhumvit Soi 61 – Wattana F +43 1 513 9290 F +591 22 423412 Prakahnong – Bangkok 10110 / Thailand ambassade.vienne @malteser.at boliviaembassy @orderofmalta.org T +66 (0) 2 7117597 embsmomth @gmail.com Bahamas Bosnia-Herzegovina H. E. Frank J. Crothers H. E. Christof Maria Fritzen Cameroon Ambassador Extraordinary and Ambassador Extraordinary and H. E. Jean-Christophe Heidsieck Plenipotentiary Plenipotentiary Ambassador Extraordinary and Chancery: Templeton Building Chancery: Mula Mustafe Plenipotentiary Lyford Cay – Nassau / Bahamas Bašeskije, 12 Chancery: Villa de la Grotte – Mont Febe P.O. Box: N 7776 71000 Sarajevo / Bosnia-Herzegovina Yaoundé B.P. 4084 T +1 242 3625783 T / F +387 33 668632 Yaoundé / Cameroon bahamasembassy @orderofmalta.org smom @bih.net.ba T +237 22 201 816 F +237 22 210 925 Belarus Brazil jchristopheh @yahoo.fr H. E. Paul Friedrich von Fuhrherr H. E. Wolfgang Franz Josef Sauer Ambassador Extraordinary and Ambassador Extraordinary and Cap-Vert Plenipotentiary Plenipotentiary H. E. Baron Miguel Antonio Igrejas Chancery: 19, Lenina Str. Chancery: Avenida W-3 Norte Horta e Costa 220030 Minsk / Republic of Belarus Quadra 507 Bloco C Ambassador Extraordinary and T +375 17 222 2737 70740-535 Brasilia DF / Brazil Plenipotentiary F +375 17 227 4521 T + 55 61 272 0402 Avenida da Holanda, 497 we @mfa.gov.by F + 55 61 347 4940 P 2765-228 Estoril / Portugal osmm @terra.com.br T +351 21 4672239 Belize F +351 21 5001049 H. E. Thomas Francis Carney Bulgaria m.h.c @sapo.pt Ambassador Extraordinary and H. E. Camillo Zuccoli Plenipotentiary Ambassador Extraordinary and Central African Republic 901 George Bush Boulevard Plenipotentiary H. E. Count Antoine de Foulhiac de Delray Beach Chancery: Blvd. Vasil Levski, 92 Padirac 33483 Florida / USA BG 1504 Sofia / Bulgaria Ambassador Extraordinary and T +1 561 3308140 T / F +359 2 8439861 Plenipotentiary F +1 561 3308233 info @smom-sofia.com Chancery: tfcarneyjr @smom-belize.org CFAO rue des Missions, BP 837 Bangui / Central Africa T +236 21613278 F +236 21611737 antoinedepadirac @hotmail.com antoinedepadirac @free.fr

ADDRESSES 107 Chad Congo (Republic of) Dominican Republic H. E. Jean-Christophe Heidsieck H. E. Philippe d'Alverny H. E. José Vitienes Colubi Ambassador Extraordinary and Ambassador Extraordinary and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Plenipotentiary Plenipotentiary Chancery: Immeuble STAR 2, rue Charles Bémont Chancery: Av. Luperón esquina Caonabo Avenue Charles de Gaulle 78290 Croissy-sur-Seine / France Edificio Mercalia-Sonelec Ndjaména / Chad T +33 1 39763716 Los Restauradores – Santo Domingo / T +235 2 522 603 philippe @dalverny.com Dominican Republic F +235 2 522 604 T +1809 549 5576 jchristopheh @yahoo.fr Costa Rica F +1809 518 5221 H. E. Antonio Nicola Lombardi emb.ordendemaltard @hotmail.com Chile Ambassador Extraordinary and H. E. Archduchess Alexandra de Plenipotentiary East Timor Hasburgo-Lorena de Riesle Chancery: De la Pop’s, 300 mts. al Sur y H. E. Charles Scarf Ambassador Extraordinary and 175 mts. al Este Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Casa N°301 – Curridabat Plenipotentiary Chancery: Catedral 1009, Piso 18 Ciudad de San José / Costa Rica 71 Victoria Road 2320286 Santiago de Chile / Chile T / F +506 234 6726 NSW 2023 Bellevue Hill / Australia T +56 2 6969209 embajadaordendemalta @ice.co.cr T +61 (2) 93276199 F +56 2 6992524 dscarf @cag.com.au alexandra.riesle @gmail.com Croatia H. E. Baron Nikola Adamovich de Csepin Egypt Colombia Ambassador Extraordinary and H. E. John Bellingham, of the Baronets H. E. Antonio Tarelli Plenipotentiary of the Castle Bellingham Ambassador Extraordinary and Chancery: Beciceve Stube 2 Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary HR 10000 – Zagreb / Croatia Plenipotentiary Chancery: Calle 107 A, n. 7 - 46 T +385 1 4677999 Chancery: 18 Hoda Shaarawi Bogotà / Colombia F +385 1 4677381 11111 Cairo / Egypt T +57 1 2144021 baron.adamovich @zg.t-com.hr T +202 2392 2583 antonio.tarelli @yahoo.com F +202 2393 9827 Cuba aosmmalte @menow.com Comoros H. E. Przemyslaw Hauser osmm_cairo @menow.com H. E. Count Hervé Court de Fontmichel Ambassador Extraordinary and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary El Salvador Plenipotentiary Chancery: Calle 182, N.115, e/1ra y 5ta Paolo Risi Valdettaro Chancery: Mission Catholique, B.P. 46 Reparto Flores, Playa Counsellor Moroni – Grande Comore / Comoros 11300 La Habana / Cuba Chancery: 87 av. Norte, T / F +269 730 570 T / F +53 72723350 Condominio Fountain Blue – Local 3/A sdscomoros @catholic.org havemb @ordinedimalta.com Colonia Escalón San Salvador / El Salvador Congo (Democratic Republic of) Czech Republic T +503 2263 3264 H. E. Count Geoffroy de Liedekerke H. E. Mario Quagliotti F +503 2264 4304 Ambassador Extraordinary and Ambassador Extraordinary and paolorisiv @hotmail.com Plenipotentiary Plenipotentiary Chancery: Avenue Bandundu, 20 Chancery: Lázenšká 4 Ecuador B.P. 1800 11800 Prague 1 / Czech Republic H. E. Andrés Cardenas Monge Kinshasa 1 / Congo T +420 257 531874 Ambassador Extraordinary and T +243 81 3330128 F +420 257 530968 Plenipotentiary +243 81 8800970 quag8nost6 @hotmail.com Chancery: Av. Amazonas 477 y Roca F +322 7065580 Edif. Rio Amazonas, Piso 10 Oficina 1001 aosmrdc @ic.cd Quito / Ecuador T +593 22 224702/03 F +593 22 227344 magansa @fdm.com.ec

108 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA Equatorial Guinea Guinea Hungary H. E. Fabrizio Francesco Vinaccia H. E. Count Gérard Dutheil de La H. E. Erich Kussbach Ambassador Extraordinary and Rochere Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Casa dei Cavaliere di Rodi Plenipotentiary Chancery: Fortuna Utca, 10 Piazza del Grillo, 1 Chancery: Immeuble P.Z. H 1014 Budapest / Hungary 00184 Roma / Italy Boulevard du Commerce, B.P. 1335 T / F +36 1 2015777 T +39 06 679 6115 Conakry / Guinea emb.hung.smom @axelero.hu ffvinaccia @embajadaordendemalta.com T +224 412 421 F +224 414 671 Italy Eritrea ordremalteguinee @yahoo.fr H. E. Barone Giulio di Lorenzo Badia H. E. … Ambassador Extraordinary and Ambassador Extraordinary and Guinea-Bissau Plenipotentiary Plenipotentiary H. E. … Chancery: Piazza dei Cavalieri di Malta, 4 Ambassador Extraordinary and 00153 Roma / Italy Ethiopia Plenipotentiary T +39 06 5780779 H. E. Alberto Bertoldi +39 06 5754371 Ambassador Extraordinary and Guyana F +39 06 5757947 Plenipotentiary H. E. … ambasciataitalia @orderofmalta.org Chancery: P.O. Box 3118 Ambassador Extraordinary and Alexander Pushkin St. Plenipotentiary Ivory Coast Adis Abeba / Ethiopia H. E. Baron Bernard de Gerlache de T +251 11 3720245 Haiti Gomery F +251 11 3720246 H. E. Hans Walter Rothe Ambassador Extraordinary and smom @ethionet.et Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Plenipotentiary Chancery: 01 BP 46 Abidjan 01/RCI Gabon Chancery: Calle Presidente Gonzalez 18 Avenue Joseph Blohorn H. E. Philippe d'Alverny Ens. Naco – Santo Domingo / Dominican Cocody / Côte d’Ivoire Ambassador Extraordinary and Republic T +225 22446 362 Plenipotentiary T +1 809 565 6524 F +225 22441 978 Chancery: P.O. Box 1197 rothe @codetel.net.do ambordremalteci @aviso.ci Libreville / Gabon T +241 44 5347 Holy See Jordan F +241 445348 H. E. Alberto Leoncini Bartoli H. E. Cheikh Walid el Khazen philippe @dalverny.com Ambassador Extraordinary and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Plenipotentiary Georgia Chancery: Piazza dei Cavalieri di Malta, 4 Chancery: Madinah Monawarah St. H. E. Marcello Celestini 00153 Roma / Italy Al Khezendar Building Ambassador Extraordinary and T +39 06 578 0778 P.O. Box: 3738 Plenipotentiary F +39 06 578 3613 Amman 11821 / Jordan Chancery: Giorgi Leonidze n.1 amb.santasede @orderofmalta.org T +962 65538460 0105 Tbilisi / Georgia +962 65543982 T +995 32 986508 Honduras F +962 6 55384 70 celestinissp @libero.it H. E. Baron Jacques de Mandat – somemjo @lkzn.org Grancey Guatemala Ambassador Extraordinary and Kazakhstan H. E. Maximo Rodolfo Heurtematte Arias Plenipotentiary H. E. von Canisius Ambassador Extraordinary and Chancery: Edificio Midence Soto Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Parque Central, Apartado Postal 3160 Plenipotentiary Chancery: Tegucigalpa, M.D.C / Honduras C.A. Chancery: Ul. Tashenova 3 Avenida Las Américas 18-81, zona 14 T +504 280 3240 KZ-010010 Astana / Kazakhstan Edificio Columbus Center, 3er. Nivel Sur F +504 237 8012 T +7 7172 7186600 Ciudad de Guatemala / Guatemala emba.smom.honduras @grupomsp.hn F +7 7172 376800 T +502 2367 4669 smom_emb_astana @mail.ru F +502 2367 4678 maltagua @terra.com.gt

ADDRESSES 109 Kenya Lithuania Marshall Islands H. E. Conte Gianfranco Cicogna Mozzoni H. E. Douglas Graf von Saurma-Jeltsch H. E. ... Ambassador Extraordinary and Ambassador Extraordinary and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Plenipotentiary Plenipotentiary Chancery: P.O. Box 1556 Chancery: Maltos Ordino Pagalbos 00502 Karen, Nairobi / Kenya Tarnyba (MOPT) Mauritania T +254 020 2397445 Gedemino pr. 56B H. E. … kenyaembassy @orderofmalta.org LT 2685 Vilnius / Lithuania Ambassador Extraordinary and T +370 52498604 Plenipotentiary Kiribati (Republic of) F +370 52497463 H. E. … lithuaniaembassy @orderofmalta.org Mauritius Ambassador Extraordinary and H. E. Count Hervé Court de Fontmichel Plenipotentiary Macedonia Ambassador Extraordinary and (former Yugoslav Republic of) Plenipotentiary Latvia H. E. Günther A. Granser Chancery: 1 rue de la Corderie H. E. Peter Fischer-Hollweg Ambassador Extraordinary and Port Louis / Mauritius Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary T +230 2125668 Plenipotentiary Chancery: Bul. Aleksandar Makedonski F +230 2114122 Chancery: MK-1000 Skopje / Macedonia herve.defontmichel @wanadoo.fr Pulkveza Brieza street 19/2 – 15 T +389 2311 8348 LV1010 Riga / Latvia F +389 2323 0975 Micronesia T +371 67325402 smom_mk @yahoo.com H. E. … F +371 67325406 Ambassador Extraordinary and embamalta @apollo.lv Madagascar Plenipotentiary H. E. Countess Véronique de la Lebanon Rochefoucauld Moldova H. E. Patrick B. Renauld Ambassador Extraordinary and H. E. Peter Canisius von Canisius Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Chancery: Villa Sammies, Lot II K 65 B Plenipotentiary Chancery: Chyah, rue Joseph Tayar Ampetsapetsa, 101 Kroissberggasse 34 2844 Beyrouth / Lebanon Antananarivo / Madagascar 1230 Vienne / Austria T / F +961 1 559984 T +261 20 2242430 T +43 664 6547 294 patrick.renauld @ec.europa.eu larochefoucauld @moov.mg +43 1 888 0 111 F +43 1 888 0 144 Liberia Mali smom_emb_mda @mail.ru H. E. Pierluigi Nardis H. E. Viscount Guy Panon Desbassayns Ambassador Extraordinary and de Richemont Morocco Plenipotentiary Ambassador Extraordinary and H. E. Frédéric Grasset Chancery: Ocean View compound Plenipotentiary Ambassador Extraordinary and Seku Turè Avenue, App. 308 Chancery: Badala Sema I Plenipotentiary Mamba Point – Monrovia / Liberia Rue 68, Porte 132 Chancery: 12, Rue Ghomara T +231 06 425 760 Bamako / Mali Rabat – Souissi / Morocco +231 06 640 710 T / F +223 20 223796 T / F +212 537 750897 smom.liberia @yahoo.it ambassadeosm.mali @sotelma.net.ml ambaosmaltamaroc @yahoo.fr

Liechtenstein Malta Montenegro H. E. Maximilian Turnauer H. E. Umberto Di Capua H. E. Enrico Tuccillo Ambassador Extraordinary and Ambassador Extraordinary and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Plenipotentiary Plenipotentiary Chancery: Mittelweg 1 Chancery: St. John’s Cavalier Chancery: Hercegova čka 13/1 9490 Vaduz / Liechtenstein Ordnance Street 81000 Podgorica / Montenegro T +43 6641302058 Valletta, VLT 1302 / Malta T +382 20 667 011 botschaft.smom @im.fuerstentum- T +356 21 223670 F +382 20 667 010 liechtenstein.at F +356 21 237795 ambasada.smom @t-com.me maltaembassy @orderofmalta.org

110 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA Mozambique Paraguay Romania H. E. Adalberto da Fonseca Neiva de H. E. Dino Samaja H. E. Franz Alfred Reichsgraf von Hartig Oliveira Ambassador Extraordinary and Ambassador Extraordinary and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Plenipotentiary Plenipotentiary Chancery: Avenida Mariscal Lopez, 2307 Chancery: Blvd Nicolae Titulescu, 4/8 Chancery: Avenida de Angola, 2850 Asunción / Paraguay America House – 7th floor Maputo / Mozambique T +595 21 602130 011141Bucarest / Romania T +258 21466583 +55 11 30948555 T +40 21 2085829 aneivaoliveira @cabelte.pt F +55 11 30948550 F +40 21 2085801 dsamaja @farmasa.com.br brindusa.theodor @snt.ro Namibia amb.f.a.hartig @utanet.at H. E. Marcello Bandettini Peru Ambassador Extraordinary and H. E. Antonio Carlos da Silva Coelho Saint Lucia Plenipotentiary Ambassador Extraordinary and H. E. Barone Carlo Amato Chiaromonte Chancery: P. Danilowitz Street n. 3 Plenipotentiary Bordonaro PO Box 9458 Eros Chancery: Calle Morales de la Torre 310 Ambassador Extraordinary and Olympia, Windhoek / Namibia El Olivar, San Isidro Plenipotentiary bandettinimarcello @gmail.com Lima / Peru 1 Grove Isle Drive, S 1002 T +51 1 6117066 Miami, FL 33133 / USA Nicaragua F +51 1 4425548 T +1 305 854 0983 H. E. Ernesto M. Kelly Morice embajada @embamalta.org.pe F +1 305 854 1630 Ambassador Extraordinary and casmom @bellsouth.net Plenipotentiary Philippines Chancery: Apartado Postal 566 H. E. Leonida Laki Vera San Marino Km. 7 1/2 Carretera Sur Ambassador Extraordinary and H. E. Pierre Blanchard Managua / Nicaragua Plenipotentiary Ambassador Extraordinary and T +505 2265 1510 Chancery: Suite 908, Paragon Plaza Plenipotentiary F +505 2295 2170 EDSA corner Reliance Street Chancery: Edificio Tonelli – 2° piano skasa @ibw.com.ni Mandaluyong City 1501 / Philippines Strada Rovereta, 42 T +63 (2) 8184427 47891 Falciano / Rep. of San Marino Niger +63 (2) 8129497 T +378 0549 940540 H. E. Count Bertrand Dubosc de F +63 (2) 8174263 F +378 0549 905559 Pesquidoux embassy.smomphil @gmail.com pierre.blanchard @tiscali.it Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Poland Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Chancery: 10 rue IB 33 H. E. Vincenzo Manno H. E. the Baron Carlo Amato Issa Béri, Commune II Ambassador Extraordinary and Chiaramonte Bordonaro Niamey / Niger Plenipotentiary Ambassador Extraordinary and P.O. Box: 724 Chancery: Ulika Bracka 22/13 Plenipotentiary T +227 20 72 43 68 00028 Warszawa / Poland Chancery: P.O. Box 299 ordredemalte_niger @yahoo.fr T / F +48 22 8272546 Bequia / Saint-Vincent and the ambasada @zakonmaltanski.pl Grenadines (West Indies) Panama T +1 305 854 0983 H. E. Giovanni Fiorentino Portugal F +1 305 854 1630 Ambassador Extraordinary and H. E. Miguel de Polignac Mascarenhas casmom @bellsouth.net Plenipotentiary de Barros Chancery: Calle Aquilino de la Guardia, Ambassador Extraordinary and São Tome and Principe Edificio Banco General Plenipotentiary H. E. Eduardo Norte Santos Silva Panama 5, Rep. de Panama Chancery: Rua da Junqueira, 136 Ambassador Extraordinary and T +507 2701496 1300-344 Lisboa / Portugal Plenipotentiary smomembapanama @yahoo.es T +351 2 13643966 Chancery: Rua Pascoal Amado F +351 2 13632171 C.P. 653 / São Tomé and Principe mpolignacb @iol.pt T +239 227988 +239 223849 F +239 223856 mmss @netcabo.pt

ADDRESSES 111 Senegal Slovenia Thailand H. E. Alan Furness H. E. Prince Mariano Hugo Windisch- H. E. Michael Mann Ambassador Extraordinary and Graetz Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Chancery: Cotoa Plenipotentiary Chancery: DS Tower II 18/66 Km 2,5 Bld du Centenaire de la Chancery: Dunajska 122 93 Sukhumvit Road, Soi 39 Commune de Dakar 1113 Ljubljana / Slovenia Wattana district B.P. 2020 Dakar / Senegal T +386 (0)15883410 Bangkok 10110 / Thailand T +221 338394040 F +386 (0)15883404 T / F +66 2260 1445 F +221 33832 4030 slovenianembassy @orderofmalta.org embsmomth @gmail.com cotoamt @orange.sn Somalia Togo Serbia H. E. … H. E. Count Charles Louis de H. E. ... Ambassador Extraordinary and Rochechouart de Mortemart Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Plenipotentiary Chancery: Spain Chancery: Lomé B.P. 10054 / Togo Ambasada Suverenog Malteskog Reda H. E. Jean-Marie Musy T +228 221 5811 Diplomatska Kolonija, 10 Ambassador Extraordinary and +228 226 6832 11000 Belgrade / Serbia Plenipotentiary cdemortemart @free.fr T +381 11 3679379 Chancery: Calle del Prado, 26 office @orderofmalta.org.rs 28014 Madrid / Spain Turkmenistan T +34 91 4201857 H. E. Franco Bonferroni Seychelles F +34 914201942 Ambassador Extraordinary and H. E. Antonio Benedetto Spada embordenmalta @terra.es Plenipotentiary Ambassador Extraordinary and Via di , 4 Plenipotentiary Sudan 00187 Roma / Italy Chancery: Clarence House Robert Toutounji T +39 335 6030465 Vista Bay Estate – Glacis – P.O. Box 642 Counselor franco @bonferroni.it Victoria – Mahé Island / Seychelles Chancery: P.O. Box: 1973 T / F +248 261137 11111 Khartoun / Sudan Ukraine azais @seychelles.sc T +249 1 83475263 H. E. Paul Friedrich von Fuhrherr smomsd @yahoo.co.uk Ambassador Extraordinary and Sierra Leone Plenipotentiary H. E. … Suriname T +375 296566838 Ambassador Extraordinary and H. E. Gustavo Adolfo De Hostos Moreau smom @tut.by Plenipotentiary Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Uruguay Slovakia Chancery: 12747 Kerksplein 1 H. E. Pierre den Baas H. E. Francis M. O'Donnell Paramaribo / Suriname Ambassador Extraordinary and Ambassador Extraordinary and T +1809 5438008 Plenipotentiary Plenipotentiary gdehostos @hostos.info Chancery: Plaza de Cagancha, 1129 Chancery: Kapitulská 9 C.P. 11100 Montevideo / Uruguay SK - 81 01 Bratislava / Slovakia Tajikistan T +598 2 9089829/39 T / F +421 254131296 H. E. Franco Bonferroni F +598 2 9090012 slovakembassy @orderofmalta.org Ambassador Extraordinary and embajada @ordendemaltauruguay.org.uy Plenipotentiary Via di Porta Pinciana, 4 00187 Roma / Italy T +39 335 6030465 franco @bonferroni.it

112 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA Venezuela THE ORDER OF MALTA HAS THE ORDER OF MALTA HAS H. E. Silvio A. Ulivi OFFICIAL RELATIONS AT OFFICIAL RELATIONS WITH Ambassador Extraordinary and AMBASSADOR LEVEL WITH Plenipotentiary Belgium Chancery: Urbanización Valle Arriba European Commission André Querton Calle Jaguar H. E. Amb. Baron Philippe Representative Q.ta Escampadero - Caracas / Venezuela de Schoutheete de Tervarent Avenue des Touristes, 14 T +58 212 782 3631 Official Representative 1150 Bruxelles / Belgium F +58 212 782 5087 Chancery: Avenue Huart Hamoir, 43 T +32 473 882375 sulivi @cinesunidos.com 1030 Bruxelles / Belgium touristes14 @skynet.be T +32 22535805 F +32 22525930 Canada maltarep.eu @skynet.be H. E. … DIPLOMATIC SPECIAL MISSIONS Chancery: …

Russian Federation France H. E. Amb. Gianfranco Facco Bonetti REGIONAL AMBASSADOR H. E. John Bellingham, of the Baronets Ambassador Extraordinary and of Castle Bellingham Plenipotentiary South-East and Far East Official Representative Chancery: Ul. Volkhonka 6, Bld.1, Off. 18 H. E. Amb. James Thomas Dominguez Chancery: 42, rue des Volontaires 119019 Moscow / Russia Ambassador Extraordinary for the F 75015 Paris / France T +7 495 7872412 Asiatic South-East and Far East T +33 (0) 1 45209614 smom @smom.ru 6, O'Connell Street - Level 17 F +33 (0) 1 45200013 Sydney NSW 2000 / Australia fondation @ordredemaltefrance.org Monaco T +61 (2) 9223 1822 H. E. Amb. Peter Kevin Murphy F +61 (2) 9221 9759 Germany Permanent Representative jim @dominguez.com.au Baron Maciej Tadeusz Heydel Chancery: Official Delegate Le Park Palace, Bureau 605 - Bloc F Chancery: Lüdtgeweg 1 Impasse de la Fontaine, 6 D 10587 Berlin / Germany 98000 Monte Carlo / Principality of T +49 30 34359721 Monaco F +49 30 34359727 T +377 680867713 maciej @heydel.com F +377 97700890 pkmurphy @libello.com Luxembourg Jonkheer Thomas C. van Rijckevorsel Representative 16, Rue de Uebersyren 6930 Mensdorf / Luxembourg T / F +352 770436 thomasvr @pt.lu

Switzerland Roland Beck von Bueren Representative St. Niklausstrasse 67 CH-4500 Soleure / Switzerland T +41 32 623 05 07 F +41 32 623 05 06 rbeck @bluewin.ch

ADDRESSES 113 THE ORDER OF MALTA HAS United Nations Educational, Scientific THE ORDER OF MALTA HAS PERMANENT MISSIONS TO and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) – DELEGATIONS OR REPRESENTATIONS THE UNITED NATIONS AND ITS Paris TO INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS SPECIALIZED AGENCIES H. E. Amb. Ugo Leone Permanent Observer Council of Europe – Strasbourg Organization of the United Nations Chancery: 42, rue des Volontaires H. E. Amb. Jean Pierre Lassalle – New York 75015 Paris / France Representative H. E. Amb. Robert L. Shafer T +33 (0) 1 5574 5380 11, Avenue du Comminges Permanent Observer ugo.leone2 @gmail.com 31170 Tournefeuille / France Chancery: 216 East 47th Street - 8 Fl T +33 561862361 10017 New York / USA United Nations Environment T +1 212 355 6213 Programme (UNEP) – Nairobi Inter American Development Bank (IDB) F +1 212 355 4014 H. E. Conte Gianfranco Cicogna Mozzoni – Washington orderofmalta @un.int Permanent Observer Count Lancelot d'Ursel Chancery: 209 Ndege Road Permanent Representative Office of the United Nations and 00502 Karen, Nairobi / Kenya 3, Drève de Bonne Odeur International Organizations – Geneva PO Box 1556 1170 Bruxelles / Belgium H. E. Amb. Marie-Thérèse Pictet-Althann T +254 020 2397445 T / F +32 2 6759870 Permanent Observer kenyaembassy @orderofmalta.org lancelot @ursel.net Chancery: 3, Place Claparède CH 1205 Genève / Switzerland Union Latina – Santo-Domingo – Paris T +41 22 346 8687 Gérard Jullien de Pommerol F +41 22 347 0861 Permanent Observer mission.order-malta @ties.itu.int Chancery: 42, rue des Volontaires 75015 Paris / France Office of the United Nations and T +33 1 4520 9198 International Atomic Energy Agency F +33 1 5574 5371 (IAEA) – Vienna g.julliendepommerol @ H. E. Amb. Günther A. Granser ordredemaltefrance.org Permanent Observer Chancery: Opernring 17 International Institute for the A 1010 Vienne / Austria Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT) T +43 1 58845 1303 – Rome F +49 89 174707 H. E. Amb. Marchese Aldo Pezzana amb.smom @oier.eu Capranica del Grillo mission.smom @oier.eu Observer Via Monti Parioli, 39 United Nations Industrial Development I 00197 Roma / Italy Organization (UNIDO) – Vienna T +39 06 6871 748 H. E. Amb. Maximilian Turnauer F +39 06 6813 4176 Permanent Observer apezzana @yahoo.it Chancery: Opernring 17 A 1010 Vienne / Austria T +43 6641302058 permanent.mission-smom @unido.at

United Nations Office and International Organizations – Rome H. E. Amb. Giuseppe Bonanno, Principe di Linguaglossa Permanent Observer Chancery: Via Ludovico di Savoia, 10/C I 00185 Roma / Italy T +39 06 700 8686 F +39 06 700 4798 orderofmalta.mission.UNRome @gmail.com

114 SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA Published by the Communications Office of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St.John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta © 2010

Magistral Palace Via Condotti 68 00187 Rome Italy Tel. +39 06 67581250 Fax +39 06 6784815 Email info @orderofmalta.org www.orderofmalta.org

Graphic design: Vertigo Design, Rome Cover: SignéLazer sa Printed by: Tipografia Mariti, Rome - April 2010

We wish to thank all the Grand Priories, Sub Priories, Associations, Order organisations and volunteer corps who contributed material to this publication. Special thanks are also due to the photographers who contributed images. SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST . JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA

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