The Malta Table Tennis Marathon The idea of the Marathon started eight years ago, when a small group of youths while speaking casually in our youth centre, got the idea of having a Marathon. At that period ZAK Zabbar wasn’t at it’s best as there were too few members and the Marathon idea was an opportunity to attract more people to the youth centre. The first Marathon was 24 hours long and only Lm400 were collected, however the group was happy as if millions of pounds were raised and they decided to donate the money to a children’s institute in Zabbar. The second year they decided that it would be fun if they invited youths from different ZAK's in Malta to participate as players in the event. The Marathon was getting more known, they even collected money during the masses held in the local church and invited them to visit the event, thus more funds were raised and they were given to another local children’s institute. Each year the number of hours of the marathon increased and in 1999 it was 44 hours long. The funds raised were used to buy a stair lift to be installed in our youth centre so that even disabled persons could be part of ZAK Zabbar and have access to our youth centre. In 2001 they funds collected increased to Lm2600 and were divided between the two children’ s Institutes in Zabbar. In 2002 Lm3600 were given to Dar Merhba Bik and in 2003 Lm5100 were raised and given to The Malta Hospice Movement. By now the activity is well established and is very much awaited for by Zabbar residents and players who each year take part in the activity. In fact last year we decided to collect money even from towns outside Zabbar and start collecting the money even before the Marathon so that we try to cover as much as possible of the expenses before the Marathon starts. We even have loads of promotion on radios and TV programmes who are always ready to promote the activity. This year funds raised will go to Caritas to help them in a project which is trying to help residents at San Blas by giving them basic education such as reading, writing and using a computer. This will give them better opportunities to integrate better into society and find a job. In fact Caritas do not allow the residents to leave the detention centre before they have a stable employment. We are very confident that this year’s Marathon will be once again a success and that we will be able to reach our aims; that of joining loads of youths together through sports while collecting funds to help charitable groups. | 
