Help repair the roof of a flooded Day Centre for persons with disabilities

These are our friends and beneficiaries of the Day Center for persons with disabilities in Community Center Kostajnica in Croatia. They have mental and/or physical impairments and they love life, enjoy being with their friends, playing, learning, creating arts and crafts, or just sipping their tea and having fun at our regular meetings in the Day Center.

Many of them live a solitary life in remote villages with poor living conditions. The only moments of true happiness for them is a time they spend in our Center, which is the only such institution within the range of 35 kilometers!

Now, Center Kostajnica is seriously damaged by the heavy rain and urgently needs to be renovated!

We are now trying to raise 30000 € hoping that you will recognize how important it is to preserve this Center, which is the only place where its beneficiaries can have any social life.

After the recent heavy rain, the old roof of the building leaked and the rooms of the Community Center were flooded and our working space was severely damaged. Now all of it needs to be repaired and reconstructed, but we don’t have the financial means to do it.

We need almost 18000 € for repairing the roof and at least 10000 € for repairing the interior of the Center,including walls, floors and some furniture. If the means suffice, we hope to buy a new computer and/or a stereo, because the rain destroyed those we had in the Center.

Estimates of the costs for repairing the roof

1. Removing the old roof cover, 240m2 x 5 € = 1.200 €
2. Removing old sheet metal, 150m x 2 € = 300 €
3. Setting pipe scaffolds, 500 m2 x 4 € = 2.000 €
4. Removing of old laths and stalls, 240 m2 x 2 € = 480 €
5. Waste disposal, 340 €
6. Trim for setting a tinplate, 240m2 x 7 € = 1.680 €
7. Covering the roof with a trapezoidal sheet, 240m2 x 14 € = 3.360 €
8. Covering the ridge, 15,50m x 15 € = 232,50 €
9. Roof flashings, 150m x 14 € = 2.100 €
10.Chimney flashings, 4pcs x 70 € = 280 €
11. Replacing old woodwork, 3m3 x 700 € = 2.100 €

SUM = 14.072,50 €
VAT (25%) = 3.518,12 €
TOTAL = 17.590,62 €

Platform and processing fee approx. 8% + transfers = 1.653,52 €

GRAND TOTAL = 19.244,14 €

REPAIRING THE INTERIOR OF THE CENTER:

- walls, floors, furniture and equipment

Total for repairing the interior of the Center, incl. fees: 10.000,00 €

GRAND TOTAL = 29.244,14 €

Help us keep the smiles on our friends' and beneficiaries' faces! Please contribute to this cause!

About the coordinator of the project

I am the representative and the President of Rehabilitation Center for Stress and Trauma (RCT), an NGO from Zagreb, Croatia. Our organization actively works with the beneficiaries of the Day Center for persons with disabilities in Community Center Kostajnica. We also work on many other projects, of which you can see more on our website http://rctzg.hr

Center was founded in 2014 with EU funds, and after the project implementation was finalized, our organization, RCT, funded it for another year. RCT is an independent, humanitarian and non-profit organization that provides psycho-social support for the disadvantaged, and we are now trying to gather funds needed to renovate the Center.

Daily life at the Center

The running of the Center is done in cooperation with the local community, whose representatives decided to co-finance the activities of the Center in 2017. It is important to highlight that this is a particularly impoverished area with a high unemployment rate, where the only source of income for the majority of the population is social welfare .

Moreover, transportation and traffic connections within this area are very weak, so the transportation of the beneficiaries is organized by RCT and local municipalities.

Community Center Kostajnica

The territory of the town of Hrvatska Kostajnica and the surrounding municipalities was directly affected by war. Up to this day, the local community has yet to recover. Furthermore, Hrvatska Kostajnica has been exposed to floods and heavy rains that caused additional damage to its infrastructure. As consequences of the war and natural disasters, Community Center Kostajnica has suffered great damage, including a leak of the building roof. Due to the damages on the roof, the water ran all the way down to the ground floor where our activities with the beneficiaries are held. Our working space was severely damaged by a flood and it needs to be reconstructed.

As the roof of the building is gravely afflicted, after each heavy rain the rooms of the Community Center are flooded. This recently happened again. Currently, the damage is so severe that a serious threat of collapsing exists, which endangers the work of the Center.

If the roof is not fixed soon, the work of the Center will have to be discontinued as there will be no place for its activities. The financial means for the employees are insured, but the Municipality does not have enough funds to reconstruct the roof, which is currently the key element for the Center to continue operating.

Beneficiaries

At the moment, this is the only opportunity for Center’s twenty beneficiaries to socialize. Some of them live in villages more than 25 kilometers away from the town without adequate living conditions and, for them, this is one of the rare chances to meet and enjoy the company of other people. At the same time, the team of professionals provides high-quality care for our beneficiaries which is generally unavailable to them and, furthermore, we have great cooperation with Social Welfare Center Hrvatska Kostajnica, which we regularly inform about social conditions of our beneficiaries.

If the roof is not repaired, we will lose the facility for holding activities which are the only type of services of this kind provided within this area. However, the greatest loss will fall onto our beneficiaries, as this is the only type of socialization conducted by a professional team they are provided with, and which will permanently vanish from this municipality.

Help us keep the smiles on our friends' and beneficiaries' faces! Please contribute to this cause!