11 Nov 2009

Call for more tradespeople to rebuild tsunami-stricken Samoa

8:35 pm on 11 November 2009

The non-profitable christian housing organisation, Habitat for Humanity New Zealand, is calling for more New Zealand building tradespeople to make themselves available for the construction of fales on the tsunami-wrecked south east coast of Samoa's Upolu island.

Habitat for Humanity is this week starting the construction of 350 fales - a process that the Chief Executive Pete North says will take up to eight months.

He says they have been inundated with offers of help but they need more qualified people.

"Lots of people that wanted to help and whilst that is very appreciated we need to ensure that it is best building practice and so we are willing to pair an unskilled volunteer with a tradesperson but that does mean we need 50 percent of the people send there to be tradespeople, so we do need more builders in particular."

Pete North says the plan is to send people for fortnightly periods over the next six to eight months.