University damaged by fire - looking for help :/

Dear colleauges and friends,

sadly, yesterday evening our department of inorganic chemistry (University of P. J. Safarik in Kosice, Slovakia) was completely destroyed during the big roof fire that resulted most probably from bad electro installation. Our labs, instruments and all of our work is forever gone. It will take months and maybe years to get this all back... At least - nobody was hurt.

However, still there are many students (including me) willing to continue with the research they´ve been working on for several months (Also many of them need to finish their master´s degree)... Not in the name of university (that will have to solve other problems the following days..) but in the name of these students I am asking you to help us if possible. Any low amounts of basic chemicals, glassware even financial help would be really appreciated as we fortunately can find another space to work in but we have no material.

For our special needs we need sodium hydroxide, erbium(III) oxide, titanium(IV) chloride, nickel and iron metal powder of high quality so we can continue our research in a field of ternary oxides and their magnetism..

If anybody can help us we will be infinitely thankful for bringing our lives back.

Please lock this topic to stay on the top of the page if you can..

Thanks for your response j_sum1 ... Unfortunately, if we were about to ask companies for sponsoring it could be accomplished only in the official way and we can not do that as we are only students. So as you wrote, the most convenient way maybe is to do fundraising and use money to buy chemicals and glassware from local suppliers maybe or ebay.

Quote: Originally posted by aga

Crowdfunding is probably the best way to go in your situation. http://www.crowdfunding.com/ Maybe split your requirements into smaller parts to ensure that funding targets are met - e.g. Lab glass, fume hood(s), common reagents, exotic reagents etc etc. (if you attempt to raise $20m in one project, you get 0 if you only raise $19.9m) Put them all under a snappy title to tie all the crowdfunding requests together.

Aga, thanks very much. We do not need milions.. we (students) are not going to repare our university.. we need just a minimum to continue our research!

Quote: Originally posted by aga

Lol. It was just an example ! With crowdfunding, you need to set a target for a project. If you reach 100% of the target, you get the money. If you reach 99.9% you get Nothing ! So, better to start a crowdfunding thing for smaller amounts, so you are more likely to get at least Some projects 100% funded, e.g. glassware, chems etc. Throw in a few 'other' projects, so if a 'real' one fails to get any money, you can use the money for the 'real' project. Maybe start a crowdfunding project for each student and raise the $ a little higher than you need, so if someone does not get any $, you can fund him/her yourself.

Lol, i got it! ... .)

We will hopefully start it tommorow...

Quote: Originally posted by Metacelsus

Did your university have insurance? If it did, you might not need to worry about getting replacement stuff, at least for the stuff that's replaceable.

Sure it did, however... money will be used for building reconstruction.. we are now trying to keep research running

We started crowdfunding for 2000$. This could help us buy chemicals and maybe some glassware. We will be thankful for anything. I hope that you colleagues understand our hard situation You can donate on this link CHEMISTRY STUDENTS - RESEARCH DESTROYED BY FIRE

[Edited on 11-12-2016 by Hegi]

Quote: Originally posted by Sulaiman

the link does not work for me

I tried to repare it. Maybe it is working now for everyone.

Quote: Originally posted by aga

Is there a way to accept paypal ?

Quote: Originally posted by aga

Nope. Logged in and just a credit card option. Edit: Looks like you have to click a button or something : https://www.generosity.com/about/terms "Campaigner Owners that accept PayPal and Contributors that use PayPal ..." [Edited on 11-12-2016 by aga]

I have read it but.. there´s no setting in my account to allow paypal donation. I am helpless with this.

We want to say big thanks to AGA who contributed with an amount of money that allowed us to buy erbium(III) oxide and some other chemicals (attached photo) to work with as our group was willing to study magnetism of mixed erbium-iron oxide prepared by various methods. Still, research is in progress due to other problems with measurements but we were able to prepare products, at least. Thanks!