The Funchal City Council awarded this week the rehabilitation contract for the former Funchal Slaughterhouse, which will become a complex of creativity, entrepreneurship and social innovation. The restoration of the building comprises three major areas: an incubator for micro-enterprises in creative industries, an area for artistic performance and exhibitions and, finally, workshops and workshops on restoration and equipment design. After the respective international public tender was concluded, the work was awarded for 3.9 million euros + VAT.
Thus, it will be necessary to start immediately vacating the building that, over the past few years, served as a space for storing furniture donations made to the Municipality by the most diverse agents, from citizens in a personal capacity, to hotels in the process of remodelling, for example, among others. Following this logic, in 2013, the Solidarity Workshop of the Municipality of Funchal was installed, an organic project by SociohabitaFunchal, created that year from the perception that many of the people who were granted social housing did not have the means for the filling of their new homes.
The work team of the Oficina Solidária of CMF has, therefore, been occupying the Slaughterhouse since then, restoring both donated furniture and other pieces that were thrown away and that were now recovered by the Environment Department. Since then, hundreds of families from the city council neighbourhoods have been helped, in a work that will now continue in a space in the downtown area, kindly provided for this purpose by businessman Francisco Costa, whom the Municipality recognises and thanks.
In order to remove the remaining pieces of furniture from the space, the Municipality decided, starting next week, to open the doors to the community, so all the movable assets that are found will be donated to private social solidarity institutions (IPSS), that are stored in the slaughterhouse building.
To this end, between the 3rd and the 14th of February, access to the building will be allowed to representatives of all IPSS in the Region, in order to select goods with which they intend to stay. Visits will take place from 9:30 am to 12:30 pm and from 2:30 pm to 5:00 pm, and the representatives of the associations must always present an identification document that proves that they belong to the same, such as the association’s taxpayer card. The transportation of the chosen movable assets will later be the responsibility of the IPSS.