The Sunday Times - 10 July 2011

A one-year flagship project entitled Raising Spirits has been launched by SOS Malta, together with Mater Dei Hospital, the Malta Cancer Foundation, the Voices Foundation and the Malta Council for Culture and the Arts.

The Raising Spirits partners will be setting up a volunteer committee and are looking for 10 people to join in order to promote the concept of creative volunteering at Mater Dei Hospital.

The overall objective ofthe Raising Spirits project is to promote and develop an enabling and facilitatingenvironment for creative and artistic volunteering within healthcare, aimed at improved patient recovery and community wellbeing.

Through its partnerships and planned activities, Raising Spirits will lead to the exploration and development of synergies between stakeholders working within the health, creative and artistic and voluntary sectors.

This exchange and the activities implemented within the project aims to produce a three-year action plan aimed at introducing regular creative and artistic volunteering activities on the national healthcare calendar of events.

The project is being carried out within the framework of the European Year of Volunteering.

To learn more about joining the volunteering committee, visit www.sosmalta.org/raisingspirits.