Over the past 18 months, I have had the extraordinary opportunity and absolute pleasure of working with Arts Council Malta (ACM), the Valletta Cultural Agency (VCA) and Festivals Malta (FM) on a variety of key projects.

From building and presenting media and marketing classes in the country, through to informing events-specific social media strategies and writing tactical PR, the most recent highlight has been interrogating and building a five-year Festivals and Events Strategy for Festivals Malta.

The latter journey stalled days before lockdowns were imposed around the world and travel to the island nation made impossible. Working remotely and embracing the power of technology my Maltese business partners and I have spent the past six-months mining, harvesting and writing a document I am extremely proud of.

Not only because the project was realised through a multitude of biotic, cultural and geographic challenges, but because we, as South Africans, are often led to believe that we’re not quite as good as the rest of the First World. This strategy is proof that nothing could be further from the truth.

In March this year, almost overnight, the world seemed to suddenly shrink in possibility. What this undertaking, and so many others like it, has confirmed for me is, as South Africans, we have the innate ability to adapt, embrace opportunity and have our resilience, aptitude and commitment endorsed.

In this case, it took an EU country, not my own, to realise and invest in a worthy and qualified team, born-and-raised a continent away.