Reconstruction Women’s Fund started interventions in the field and informative fundraising actions “Sisters Are Doing It Best” as our form of rebellion against arrogance and spreading fear during floods in May: by the Church that blamed LGBT for the scourge of floods, by nationalist conservatives who wanted women to make corn breads for men working at embankments, by the State that censored exchange of information and thoughts among citizens. Our policy of solidarity has always been based on activism, cooperation, information sharing, inclusion and learning from each other, and these are ours and experiences of our closest collaborators.
And when it all started, we entered a broad invisible world: the world of displaced, evicted, repeatedly flooded or burned down, elderly deprived of their rights, asthmatic kids, cancers, heart attacks, widowed ones, big families. Settlements are in horrible conditions, on the edges of towns, very poor. One can see a long history of exclusion and negligence, and the solution is either to remain invisible or to expose themselves to threats. They struggle on their own. For them our interventions are unexpected, for us they are unusual: buying a cradle, looking for a chimney sweep, building roof over a ramshackle house, lobbying for a water channel to be cleaned, for finding accommodation and against obstructing repair works.
We are proud to introduce you this report which has been developing for nearly two years: https://www.rwfund.org/eng/critical-themes/the-floods-2014-2016-2/the-floods-2014-2016
We present you the publication that was created as a manual about our experience and basic steps for constructing a home in emergency circumstances. It presents the process of cooperation of the team of (at the time) students of architecture and Reconstruction Women’s Fund: “A Model of Temporary Housing. From Concept to Realization: The Roma Settlement Example“. In January 2016 the book was printed and distributed to universities, high and secondary schools of connected professions and to public libraries. The book in English https://www.rwfund.org/eng/2016/04/04/a-model-of-temporary-housing
This work also has its life. The team of students, now graduated architects, was invited by BINA (Belgrade Week of Architecture) to present the project in which we cooperated and the model through an exhibition in May. Meanwhile the work was presented and awarded in the category Experiment/research in the Salon of Architecture in the Museum of Applied Art March 29 – April 30, 2016. It is common interest that the profession recognizes what architecture really should be.
Big thanks to Oak Foundation. Without their financial aid the activities which we realized would not be possible. Thanks go for the trust, recognition and offering assistance in the situation when it was the most needed.
