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Western Balkans
How do we help?
- Humanitarian assistance
- Children development
- Rural development
Current activities
On 29 December 2020, a powerful earthquake with a magnitude of 6.4 struck central Croatia, with Petrinja as the epicentre. The earthquake killed seven people and injured several others, causing extensive damage to the city and its agglomeration, and damaging thousands of homes and public buildings, making them uninhabitable. With the support of the Hungary Helps agency, the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Government of Croatia, work was finally able to start on several project sites.
Glina Highschool
Based on local coordination and assessments, HIA has been involved in the rehabilitation of the secondary school in the municipality of Glina, in Sisak-Moslavina zupanija. The severely damaged building was found to be salvageable, and once structural repairs are completed - expected in 2023 - our organisation will implement improvements to the school to ensure the quality of education. The donation will be used to revitalise the empty and dilapidated library, replace equipment in the various laboratories and rooms destroyed in the earthquake, and refurbish the multimedia equipment in the similarly damaged building.
Residential containers for earthquake-affected people
To help the people who lost their homes following the earthquake, HIA - in cooperation with 23 Hungarian companies and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade - installed housing and sanitation containers in two municipalities severely affected by the disaster. A total of 120 mobile units (108 residential and office units and 8 sanitary containers) were distributed 50/50 between the county centre of Sisak and the village of Lekenik. Only three months after the earthquake, the mobile containers were already in place and were handed over to the population severely affected by the disaster on 20 April 2021.
No 1 Primary School, Petrinja
Primary school No 1 in Petrinja was severely damaged in the December 2020 earthquake, and since then students have been forced to study in alternative classrooms all over the city. Just a year and a half after the groundbreaking ceremony, the school is now a brilliantly modern building with 20 classrooms, two gyms, a canteen and a fully equipped courtyard and playground. Funded by the Government of Hungary's Hungary Helps programme, HIA completed the new building in late 2023.