We recently caught up with Fabio Spiteri to hear how he fared with this year's Project 100, which recently came to an end after raising €77,500 for animal welfare in Malta. Our interview with endurance athlete Fabio, currently ranked 7th in the IUTA World Cup, took place in an Italian cafe in Sliema, during a break in his cycle training.
Hi Fabio, tell us about Project 100 and the work you do in supporting animal welfare
I have two passions in life; sports and fundraising, and I have found a way to combine these two passions, by getting sponsored for competing in extreme sports events. This year I competed in the French 5x Ironman in June, and the Italian Deca in September, so I basically fundraised from May through to December. I am the first Maltese athlete to complete the Deca, which is one Iron Man every day for ten days, meaning a total of 38 km swim, 1,800 km bike ride and a 422 km run, and I am one of only 140 people who have ever completed it. I managed a good result, finishing in 264 hours over 11 days.
The fundraising for the Deca came to an end in the first week of December, with a total of €77,500 raised for the year. I didn’t manage to hit the €100,000 target - which is where the Project 100 name comes from - but it is still a very satisfying amount to have raised for animal welfare, and many thanks to iGEN for their continuing support.
Myself and my main sponsor, Borg Cardona Pet Supplies - who cover all my expenses in organising and running Project 100 - just held an event where we met with all the animal welfare NGOs, non-NGOs, and individuals that we support, to distribute either money or vouchers - which are redeemable for food or medicine - and with that now done I can take a break and rest before beginning planning for next year’s Project 100, with the same goal of reaching €100,000 in donations.
When did you start getting interested in animal welfare?
That was before covid, around 2018 or 2019. It really started when I was volunteering at a dog shelter, which took care of abandoned animals, and I began to understand how much it costs to run a shelter of that size, which was caring for around 150 animals. I began to hear about other shelters, some for dogs but also others taking in horses, cats and rabbits – there are problems everywhere. I started with small-scale fundraising events: my first was a 2km swim with Jason Vella, and we collected around €3000, and that planted a seed for the idea of these larger extreme sport events.
I would have been doing the events anyway, as it is my life and my work, and luckily people are very interested in what I do, so it is the perfect combination. It really clicked - it worked from the start, and as an animal lover myself, with thirteen pets at home, I am really glad to be able to give back to society by supporting animal shelters by doing what I love.
How do you choose who to support?
I originally started with a list of four shelters, but then I thought ‘hang on a minute, there are plenty of other worthy organisations needing help,’ and the list just grew and grew. At first, I only gave to registered NGOs, but of course there are other people who deserve help, like Christa Chilia for example, who has 30 rescue dogs in her home - she rescues them from the street, takes care of their medical needs out of her own pocket, and gives them shelter. She is a private individual, not an NGO, but I want to help people like her anyway. This year was my biggest year so far, I had 59 individuals who I helped, as well the NGOs, and of course the larger shelters, who obviously need more help - they may have 100 to 200 dogs or cats to take care of.
Like yourself, iGEN are sponsors of Malta Ranger Unit, and we have collaborated on two clean-ups in support of Birdlife Malta recently. You got some criticism for donating to these organisations, can you explain what happened?
That was so pathetic. I have been helping Birdlife Malta every year - not huge amounts, but regularly. And this year I also supported Malta Ranger Unit - I gave them money to buy a chip reader, so they could identify lost dogs which they find during their patrols, instead of having to wait for Animal Welfare to come. A certain person - who unsurprisingly is a convicted poacher - publicly criticised Borg Cardona for sponsoring me, because I chose to give money – the amount of which he vastly exaggerated - to these two NGOs, both who do great work protecting our wildlife, and are highly critical of illegal poaching, and publicly lobby for more enforcement of Maltese laws.
Firstly, it is my decision who I support with my fundraising, but this person actually called for Maltese hunters - a powerful political lobby - to boycott Borg Cardona for sponsoring me! But it kind of backfired, because I got tons of responses from people who said they were now going to become customers, to show their support for the work we do. Real karma at work!
So, now you are done fundraising for this year, what is in the pipeline for 2025?
I am still waiting for the official calendar of ultra-events for next year, and I am hoping that there will be a double Deca, which is 20x Ironman, which is twice what I did this year. Only about 12 people in the world have done this, and I would love to give it a go. If it doesn’t happen, I will definitely do another Deca, with the goal of breaking my own personal record – I am faster and stronger now, so when the calendar is released in January or February I will start booking the races.
What about the list of charities and individuals that you help, will that be the same as this year?
I will definitely have all on the current list, however if somebody gets in touch about a deserving cause, I will first verify it myself, and then add them to the list.
How do you determine what kind of help is needed, and how is this help distributed?
My main sponsor is Borg Cardona as I said, and they cover the many thousands of Euro’s which are needed to keep me competing, but on top of that, companies and private individuals donate money when I compete in extreme events, and these donations are collected into a fund over the course of the year, to be distributed to those in need, which we have just done.
Borg Cardona are also Malta’s biggest importers and distributors of animal medicines, and they have a broad range of healthy animal feed, so they are the perfect partner for Project 100. Some shelters I give vouchers, which they can redeem for what they need from this product range. But I also give cash donations to cover medical expenses and vet bills for injured and abandoned animals, and some shelters need cash to keep operating.
For instance, horse shelters are expensive to run. Three shelters that I support home racehorses which are no longer wanted, and which are just discarded - either put down, or if they are lucky, rescued by a shelter for rehabilitation, where they then try to find them a farm they can retire to abroad. Each horse costs €2000 to export, so we have a small Christmas project now, together with one of the horse rescue groups - Second Chance Horse Rescue, run by 17-year old Alastair Spiteri - to try and get the government involved in finding homes for horses here in Malta – there are abandoned buildings here which have been empty for more than 20 years, and which could be repurposed as stables. So far Second Chance have relocated abroad 100 horses which were discarded when they could no longer race.
Have you seen an improvement in the way animals are treated since you started?
I think so, yes.... the attitude is getting better, but I do believe it is partly because there are a lot more foreigners living here in Malta now, especially in iGaming, and many of them are animal lovers, and I get a lot of support and donations that way. But having said that, I am seeing a lot of abandonment, almost like how it was back in the 80’s, a lot of stray dogs roaming the streets, and there are around 50,000 stray cats in Malta, so we have a program of neutering and releasing them. It can be because it is expensive to feed animals, and maybe people don’t have the money to take care of them properly, but they should ask for help, not abandon them. I am very passionate about this subject, and it makes me angry, really angry to see.
As a human being, sometimes we need to stop and say ‘What are we going to give back to society?’ because too many people are greedy and selfish. We need to take care of the weakest and most vulnerable members of society.
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