After the fire: Help us move on

"At approximately 8am, Sunday 20th December 2020, an explosion ripped through the lower part of our apartment block. With pieces of ceiling fragments pinning us to the bed my partner Paulo and I couldn’t work out what was happening. It took a fair amount of fumbling in the dark and dust filled room to find the door, to understand that half the apartment was gone, to locate his daughter Noni who had landed two floors below, and to climb precariously over what was left of the first floor in front of a crowd of shocked onlookers. The fireman had now arrived, a look in their eyes that could witness what we had only started to comprehend, that the building was about to go up in flames."

That was then, this is now. We got back on our feet solely through the help of friends, family, donations from the public and help from colleagues. We know how incredibly lucky we were to get out alive - two of our neighbours didn't make it, and our hearts are forever with the family of the first floor.

 

So why this fundraiser? Well, unfortunately the story doesn't end here, although I wish I could say that it did. Like the other displaced tenants, we need to pay €9,000 to rectify the site of the explosion - the hole where our home was - including payments to the police, a structural engineer, and others. Already the work has been delayed because the explosion was so powerful it affected many surrounding properties. Every month the bill gets bigger.

 

There will be no insurance payouts for the house that my partner owned and lived in for over twenty years, or for the loss of our personal possessions. We have basically one option - to sell the land and try to move on from there. This process is time consuming. We have no way out of paying the mortgage on that house that doesn't exist for the remaining nine years, whilst also paying for rental property.

 

Can you please help us with a donation towards the €9,000 we need to sort out the land before the end of 2021?

 

The headlines fade but the hole in the lives of everyone it affects is huge. Anything you can offer to help us move on is received with eternal gratitude.

PS. My fundraising exhibition, Home, curated in response to losing our home, will be presented at Espaço Cultural Merces in Lisbon on October 15th, and also online at www.ninafraser.xyz/home. If you would like to view the 100 works for sale at 100€ please visit my website .
10% of the profits raised will be given to homeless charity CRESCER, to support vulnerable people who do not have access to any other assistance.