Education First Malta

While in Malta I worked for about three months with Education First as an Activities Manager. Before applying for the job I had never heard of the company, but apparently they run programs in Brisbane too. In a nutshell, over summer Education First run a fully supervised English teaching program for school aged students wishing to improve their English. Each week day they spend a couple of hours in English lessons, for the rest of the time they participate in organised activities. 

A cruise to Comino island with Philip (local leader), Charlie (Scandinavian international leader), and Matt (fellow activity manager and all round awesome bloke). And yes, we had to wear pink.

Each group of students has one local leader to show them around and one leader from their country to assist with language and cultural issues. My job was to book all their activities, and to organise and manage the evening and weekend activities. It was cool.

Intensely booking events in the office - nah, probably checking the Ashes scores.

The two most awesome things for me was that I had moved to a new country and BAM! Instant friends. The other awesome thing was the amount of friends I made from all over Europe. I have already visited a couple in my travels and I hope to be able to visit more. I was put up in a hotel with all the other managers and the international leaders, so it was kinda like Fenner all of again, except more intense.  Some idea of the nationalities I worked with – Maltese (obviously), Italians, French, Spanish, Swiss, Austrian, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, German, Danish, Canadian, Irish, English, + more.

Six People (includng the photographer), and six nationalities. This was my first night out.

The events I organised consisted of parties and discos all over Malta (including an old movie set for Popeye -  apparently it’s a terrible movie), 

I got to be the foam guy at one of the foam parties! I also had to DJ a couple of times - I don't think I was all that good, but a couple students wanted my playlist.

cruises to the different islands (see Gozo and Comino in previous post), visits to cultural and historical sites, and activities like Go-Karting and sporting events (my AFL ball came out at these as there was nowhere else I could kick. I’m pretty certain that the students thought I was an idiot literally running around by myself, throwing dummies, and kicking to nobody).

Baiky and I do a line of coke at the first disco.

It was hard work, generally 8-10 hours a day five days a week plus another five or so on either Saturday or Sunday. But, pretty much every night was a party if you were so inclined. As I was also applying for jobs while I was there I spent some nights in, but other times…well…other times there was cheap beer, cheap shots, cheap whiskey, cheap vodka, and cheap hangovers. Luckily water was cheap too. It was fun, anyone from Fenner who has SR or FRC experience I recommend giving it a go. Head up to Brisbane and lead a group for a week or two, it is a good way to get a paid holiday. 

Yup, we worked waaaaaay too hard. Staff members chillin' by the pool in the aftenoon.

Also, there is currently an Activity Manager job in Malta for next year – three months, free accom, free food, and, taking the cost of living into account, the pay is decent enough. 

 The activities team at the Summer after-party