Gozo Kids Find Their Voice: Free Public-Speaking Course Turns Quiet Students into Island Storytellers

**Young Voices, Big Dreams: Gozo’s Next Generation Takes the Mic**

*A new public-speaking course on Malta’s sister island is turning shy schoolchildren into confident storytellers—and giving Gozo’s dialect a proud new stage.*

XAGĦRA, GOZO—On a breezy Thursday afternoon, the usually quiet parish hall in Xagħra echoes with applause. A 10-year-old wearing her brother’s oversized blazer has just explained, in crystalline Maltese, why figs—not strawberries—should be Malta’s national fruit. The crowd of parents, grandparents and slightly bored younger siblings erupts. Phones shoot up to capture the moment. Someone whistles in classic Gozitan style—two fingers in the mouth, loud enough to rattle the stained-glass saints.

Welcome to “Kliem Qawwi” (Strong Words), a free eight-week public-speaking programme designed exclusively for Gozitan primary-school students. Conceived by the Gozo Cultural Institute and funded by the Ministry for Gozo, the pilot course has turned 42 children from three villages—Xagħra, Xewkija and Għarb—into miniature orators, ready to debate everything from rabbit stew recipes to whether Malta should have a four-day school week.

“Gozitans are born storytellers, but our kids rarely get formal training in structuring a speech,” explains course coordinator Maria Portelli, a former Radio Malta presenter who swapped national airwaves for her hometown piazza. “We wanted to give them the tools to speak confidently without losing that distinctive Gozitan lilt that makes Nonna tear up.”

Each Saturday, the group meets for two hours of games, breathing exercises and “micro-speeches” filmed on tablets. Week three focuses on humour—students rewrite traditional Ġbejna jokes for a TikTok audience. Week six tackles the art of the dramatic pause, using passages from the 1863 novel *Elvira* by Gozitan author Guzeppina Sapiano. By week eight, participants must deliver a three-minute talk on a topic they “would defend in front of a flock of hungry seagulls.”

Local impact has been immediate. The Xagħra bakery reports selling twice as many ħobż biż-żejt on class days—parents linger over coffee while their kids rehearse outside. The parish priest, Fr. Joe, claims confession queues are shorter: “They’ve already spilled their secrets on stage,” he laughs.

Culturally, the course is a quiet counter-revolution. Over decades, many Gozitan students left the island to attend secondary school in Malta, returning with “mainland” accents that elders saw as betrayal. Kliem Qawwi celebrates dialect, awarding bonus points for peppering speeches with words like “mela” and “u iva.” Eight-year-old Dean from Xewkija earned a standing ovation for comparing his nanna’s *imqaret* to “sunshine folded 12 times,” delivered in pure Gozitan vowels thick enough to butter.

Tourism officials are watching closely. Gozo’s brand hinges on authenticity; hearing local kids confidently explain village festa traditions in English, Maltese and dialect is marketing gold. Already, one boutique hotel in Għasri has offered graduates a monthly “Story Sunday” slot where they can regale guests with legends of the Calypso Cave. Parents joke about charging admission.

Yet the real payoff may be personal. Ten-year-old Leah, who used to hide behind her mother’s skirt when relatives visited, now volunteers to read the grocery list aloud at the supermarket. “She asked for a spotlight for her birthday,” her mother says, rolling her eyes. “I gave her a desk lamp and a makeshift soapbox. She’s over the moon.”

Course creators hope to expand to all Gozo schools next year and eventually export the model to Malta. Minister for Gozo Clint Camilleri visited last week, calling the initiative “a bridge between our islands and within ourselves—because when a child learns to speak, a whole village learns to listen.”

As the closing ceremony winds down, students release helium balloons attached to cards bearing their dream jobs: marine biologist, baker, *Papa* of the European Parliament. One card simply reads “storyteller.” It rises highest, caught in the warm updraft above the Xagħra valley, drifting toward the shimmering channel that both separates and unites Malta and Gozo. Below, the kids cheer their own words traveling farther than any ferry ever could.