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Social goals
Nethedal: Day Care for Mentally Challenged Adults in Booischot
Founded and built by Rotary Heist-op-den-Berg!
On November 8th 1985 the home "Nethedal" was founded on the first floor of the old Town Hall of the village Schriek (part of Heist op den Berg). Home Nethedal was a Day Care and Activity centre, with room for 10 adult people with a mental and physical challenge. At the start, the costs for rent, infrastructure, transportation (by minivan) and personnel were fully funded by Rotary, as it took more than a year to get recognized by the government for funding. After that the subsidies came in piecemeal. To fund all this, we founded the project "Actie Zorgenmens", a big manifestation of 2 days at the sport facilities in Booschot, with Horse races, children’s animation, live performances, ballooning and much more. Later other initiatives were added such as Golf tournaments, canoe, and even a pigeon day.
In the meantime the amount of clients in the centre grew steadfast, which made the facilities too small. With our own funds we purchased some land and after receiving the necessary permits and subsidies we could start building the on purpose designed bulding. Even after subsidies we coughed up more than 500,000€. Thanks to the continued efforts of all club members, this amount was found. Also NVSG and foreign contactclubs participated with some funding.
On 7th June 2002, with the mayor of Heist-op-den-Berg , the governor of the province of Antwerp, the DG and DGE 1630, various invitees and of course the home clients themselves, we were able to officially open the new building. But this absolutely did not mean the end of the story. For years we have been striving to start, alongside the day care centre, a home to live for the clients of our centre. Of course this would mean quite a lot of funds yet again.
The plans are ready, and we are going through the negotiations for official funding and permits with all possible governmental organizations to get the financing of this project completed.