My Aunt's House is Falling Apart

Thank you all for taking the time to read my story. My name is John and I have an aunt living in a small town in Colombia called 'Santa Rosa de Cabal' (Risaralda). Let me tell you a little bit about her...

My aunt 'Libia' suffers from middle stage Dementia, arthritis, a broken hip, Lupus and just recently became anemic to the point that she needs a blood transfusion. We are currently trying to get help from local blood donors via Facebook in Colombia because the blood banks there unfortunately do not have her blood type. You can see more on that topic on this page at the top: https://www.facebook.com/santarrosanos/ Many generous locals have already come forward with blood donations and she will be getting the transfusion some time this week. (I will update on that separate note).


She has been hospitalized for the past 4 months and undergoing all kinds of extensive tests and evaluations that we had to financially endure to make sure that she can have everything needed to get her back home and provide her with a home care assistant. However, here is where our struggle begins; The integrity of the house she lives in has severely degraded over the years and is not safe for her to continue to live in it under the current conditions. There are numerous structural issues, the walls have deep cracks, 70% of the roof has practically come down, the beams are rotten and can't hold their own weight, mold everywhere, floors are warped and the rain has badly rotted anything that is still standing. Even the little bit of furniture and bed that remains has been damaged by the downpours that come into exposed areas of the house. By US standards a place as such would be considered condemned but for her, it is still home.

I need your help to reach my goal so I can travel back home and procure all the necessary materials and labor to begin the reconstruction of the new roof as well as tackle other critical parts of the house which are also starting to crumble. We can't afford to rebuild the entire house but we would like to give her at least a decent roof to live under. Labor and materials such as wood, bamboo and other waterproof elements are not very costly. However, I will need to have the entire roof taken down and rebuilt using cost efficient materials. There are other issues to be addressed but those are more of the superficial kind and not critical at this time.

The faith of the house and my aunt's livelyhood depends on whether I can pull in the minimal resources that we need to start putting forward the rebuilding efforts. Again, thank you to all of you who can contribute to help us salvage her home and make a safe place to live. 


Your good wishes and supportive comments are also welcome...help us spread the word.

I will update on the progress we make along the way...THANK YOU!