Relief, Independence and Emergency Project Construction of a New Building for Disabled People in Bologna, Italy

Project location: Italy, Bologna
Project start date: December 2011 - Project end date: December 2012
Project number: 2011-55
Beneficiary: Associazione ARCA Comunità l’Arcobaleno onlus

TIMELINE OF THE PRESENT REPORT:

From 01/12/2011 to 31/03/2013

The project goal was the construction of a new building to increase the capacity of the existing association's social rehabilitation residential centre to welcome and accommodate people with learning disabilities, as well as to offer new and more functional spaces for the workshops.

The works began in December 2011 and the building was completed in December 2012, as originally scheduled. Only minor modifications were brought to the presented project, mainly concerning security and equipment's' requirements asked by local and sanitary authorities. In the first months of 2013 the association worked for implementing and making the new structure operational, by furnishing the bedrooms and the living room, creating a fully equipped kitchen, and creating parking lots and sidewalks outside.

The new structure is composed of:

- at the top floor the residential part, composed of 6 single bedrooms, kitchen, dining room, living room and bathrooms. In this new residential area of the Community is foreseen the possibility of welcoming up to 6 disabled people;

- at the ground floor there is a new wide room for the Community for about 100 people, equipped with audio/video, soundproofing, with annexed a new fully equipped kitchen, and it will offer to the Community the opportunity to organize events, seminars, training courses, in order to strengthen the relationship with the territory and its citizens, and to develop collaborations with other associations and institutions active in the field of social assistance and social promotion. The ground floor will also offer new spaces for workshop activities, taking into consideration the increasing number of people who will be welcomed in the Community.

In agreement with social and sanitary Regional public institutions, the new residential area will answer to very diffused situations of emergency among the families in the area. In fact, there is a strong need to support families who are no longer able to assist their family members, for example old parents who can no longer take care of their son due to the sudden occurrence of serious diseases. Another very common situation is the need for families to place their disabled member in a care institution, even if only for short periods, to offer to the family itself a time of relief.

The new building is now completed and the ground floor is already in operation, while the new residential area is still waiting for final authorizations of local sanitary institutions, expected in June 2013. With the new building the Community will be able to increase from 15 to 20 the number of disabled people welcomed in the in the residential centre.