New house for Romania
1. Mission accomplished
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2. Destructive floods in June 2010 badly damaged
many
single-storey homes like this
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3. Inside the old house: dark and cramped
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4. Unloading the kit house, including the Shufflebottom
steel frame, sent from the UK
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5. The steel frame goes up
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6. Adding the blockwork
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7. Two storeys and a roof
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8. Fitting the range, the heart of a Romanian village home
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9. Smoke from the range
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10. Their own bedroom
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11. Finished in pink
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12. They all helped
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Dorohoi, in impoverished north-east Romania,
near the border with Ukraine, suffered
alarming floods at the end of June
2010. Six inhabitants were killed, and some
780 houses and 21 bridges were badly
damaged.
Romania, whose dictatorial president Nicolae Ceausescu was
overthrown and executed during a mass uprising in December 1989, is
now a member of the European Union, but languishes in dire
financial straits. In 2010 state employees had their salaries cut
by 25%, and value added tax, charged on purchases, was ratcheted up
from 19% to 24%.
In the region around Dorohoi, there are areas where 19 houses in
every 20 lack running water, and many families cannot afford
electricity. Add a severe flood to the endemic poverty, and
hundreds of households were left with very few possessions.
Insurance is rare as most people cannot afford it: losses are not
reimbursed,
The Romanian Aid Foundation, a British charity working with the
Dorohoi-based Romanian charity Asociatia Neemia, supplies
furniture, clothing and other fundamentals to Romanians in need. In
autumn 2010 a lorry left Wales carrying materials to construct a
new home for a Romanian family: structural steel and the composite
roof from Shufflebottom, windows from Derwen Windows, insulation
boards from Kingspan, and purlins from the Hadley Group. Mrs Lorna
Shufflebottom donated some of the construction costs, and Derwen
Windows did likewise.
Our photos show the construction in progress, the creation of a
sturdy steel-framed house, insulated against the cold winters, a
comfortable home for a Romanian family.
For more information see the Romanian Aid Foundation, www.roaf-org. In addition,
the Relief Fund for Romania has
background data on the North East region in which Dorohoi is
located.