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Ivorine Bulwer - Executive Director, HelpAge
"This building has been around over 50 years. Initially, it was called the poor house. It was handed over to HelpAge Belize in 1984 and over the years the building started deterioration and we were having quite a number of challenges with the rain and last year with the torrential rain, we had experience some losses with our equipment and we had submitted a claim to the Insurance Corporation ICB. The claim that we made had nothing to do with the torrential rain. It had to do with our infrastructural problem. However, they saw something and they did something, the humanitarian side came out and they contributed almost 9 thousand dollars for us to get our roof renovated. So, we had change the entire roofing. Those older persons really, they look forward to coming to the centre. However, we had some concerns because of the leakage. The risk of mold were already developing and those have hazardous effects. However, our offices were certainly affected, we had to put bins to collect the water when it rains. There are certain sections in the main centre that leaked. However, it is not in the site where we conducted activities for our older persons, but we had a situation where one day when we came in and we found the ceiling in one of the office just down, a computer that was in that area was affected. We had a phone, we had a radio, we had other things there and those things were affected. We are serving the older persons and we need assistance, we need help to help our older persons in their latter days to live a dignified life. So, in other words they could consider reaching out to older persons within their respective communities."

The Insurance Corporation of Belize donated $9,000 and Bulwer said they also pledged $12,000 to help with the Belize City and Seine Bight Helpage branches.