Work begins on Jersey’s relief project in Madeira

Thursday 28th October 2010, 2:55PM BST.

The property that Jersey donations are helping to renovate

WORK has begun on an old people’s home in Madeira which is to benefit from more than £100,000 raised in Jersey.

The money was donated to the charity Jersey Side by Side after floods devastated the island in February, killing 42 people and leaving more than 600 homeless.

The money is being used to build an extension to a retirement home in Ribeira Brava, one of the areas worst hit by the flash floods, and work at the site recently began.

So far, the building, which will provide accommodation for 14 elderly people whose homes were washed away by the floods, has been gutted and the work is expected to finish in April.

The Jersey Side by Side money – which has been boosted by a recent donation of £2,627 from the Co-op – is being added to local funding. The total raised now stands at £116,500.

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