New house for 35 girls / women with special needs

Construction of a building for activities and room adaptation, adapting them to special needs.

The Association of Our Lady Consolator of the Afflicted - Convento dos Cardaes is a place of social life, with each of the 35 "girls" who live here; and cultural, through the daily visits of an audience that discovers, in Principe Real, a place they didn't know there was.

New Work: The Solution to an Urgent Need

We are going to do construction work on a new building and refurbishing the old one, trying to give our "girls" a better quality of life and making this project a project for life. At this moment we have many problems to solve: the space of the Convent is neither sufficient nor adequate to the present needs. The rooms are small and far from the bathrooms, the kitchen is far from the cafeteria, there is no nursery space and the girls do not fit in the activity rooms. European and Social Security legal requirements, which in a recent assessment reported that there is a need for urgent remodeling, are not met.

Budget totaling € 2 million, not including bedroom furniture and activity room equipment.

Objectives:

Deficiency

About the author

In the nineteenth century, blind women were particularly vulnerable to abuse, marginality, and misery. It is in this context that a group of ladies led by the 3rd Countess of Rio Maior founds, in 1848, the Association Our Lady Consolator of the Afflicted. The idea at the time is deeply innovative in collecting the poorest from the poor. In 1877, the Convent of Cardas is given to this social work and the care of the users is given to the Dominican Sisters.

Today, the Association Our Lady Consolator of the Afflicted is a Private Social Solidarity Institution that maintains care for the blind and other ladies with multi-disabilities. A community of Dominican Sisters lives in the Convento dos Cardaes, caring full time for 38 disabled women with the help of outside helpers, volunteers and technicians for the various activities. The Nossa Senhora Consoladora dos Aflitos Association is also responsible for the administration, heritage conservation and cultural animation of the Convent of Cardaes.