For the past ten years, the Order of Malta in Germany has organised a day of service for over 200 companies, dubbed ‘Malteser Social Day’. Over 4,000 employees have taken up the challenge, abandoning their computer screens, desks and boardrooms for a day to take part in an Order project near them.

Businessmen found themselves taking disabled children to the zoo, or going on a trip to a farm with recovering drug addicts, or helping in a kitchen that provides lunch for disadvantaged children. There are many other examples of the activities these new volunteers engage in, such as re-decorating youth clubs, or visiting elderly people suffering from multiple sclerosis and dementia.

This year, the Social day is today, and almost 1,300 employees are serving the Order’s projects and its beneficiaries in Berlin, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Munich, Stuttgart and 14 other cities.

The effect of this voluntary involvement in the Order’s country-wide social projects strengthens team spirit and helps raise awareness of one’s personal responsibility towards others.