New Home in Banija – Help us rebuild homes devastated by earthquake

Action started by Engineers

We decided to launch the humanitarian action New Home in Banija as engineers of various professions, with the aim of designing and building a new home for at least one family that lost everything in the devastating earthquake on December 29, 2020 that hit Croatian region called Banija (or Banovina).

A day after the earthquake

While delivering humanitarian aid in Majske Poljane, a small village in Banija region, we met a man (early 30s) in front of a house. When asked if he needed anything, he answered "No I don’t, thank you, I have everything". What we saw behind him was his demolished house. Later we found out that is name is Damir, lives with his retired mom Nada and works in the local factory in Glina.

Why to help Damir?

Although thousands of people need help, we were highly motivated by the fact that this young man still wants to stay and work in his village despite everything. Therefore, our goal is to help Damir to survive in this area and contribute to its revitalization because without young people, there’s no future for Banija.

With your help we can give him the necessary "wind in his sails". Otherwise, he and his mom will spend another winter in a container or leave Majske Poljane forever.

What was done by now?

We organized the demolition and removal of the remains of the destroyed house and the project documentation for the construction of a new house of about 65 m² is being prepared, which is a personal designers’ donation.

Complete project documentation for obtaining a building permit with the associated bill of quantities will be available for customization and will be given for use to all interested parties in need as well as to donors.

For the next step we need your help, either financial and/or material resources for building and equipping the house.

* Croatian citizens and companies can also make a donation offline by payment to a special account opened for this humanitarian action in Zagrebačka banka d.d. (IBAN: HR8923600003510211876) until April 30, 2021.

** Should there be any excess funds, they will be redirected to the Salamun family from nearby village of Strašnik, who also lost there home in the devastating earthquake on December 29, 2020.

*** In case we collect less funds than necessary, the collected funds will be spent on starting the construction of the house. If the collected funds are not even enough to build the shell of the house, we will forward all the collected funds to the specified beneficiaries as housing assistance.