Tuesday, December 1, 2009

[pima.nius] Re: Appealing for homeless Tongan tsunami victims...CAN PIMA HELP

6:07 PM |

Come on PIMA... are we going to help or not????
Or are the poor people of as they call it "the forgotten islands"
truly forgotten???
Red Cross has raised $3million for Samoa...

On Nov 30, 11:15 pm, Savili <wellth4l...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Appealing for homeless Tongan tsunami victims
>
> www.tonganz.orgreports a fresh appeal for the displaced – and
> overlooked? - population of Niuatoputapu, many still without temporary
> let along permanent shelter says Tongan Advisory Council chair Melino
> Maka..
>
> The shelter need remains 60 days after the tsunami of 30 September
> killed nine Tongans and destroyed 79 buildings in the isolated
> northern Tongan island near to Samoa he said in announcing a fresh
> attempt to get attention – in the face of public focus on Samoa's own
> real needs.
>
> In the first of a week ofwww.tonganz.orgspecial reports to focus on
> the disaster that hit Niua, he recalled how the New Zealand government
> aid agency NZAID had said in the first 30 days after the waves struck
> they awaited a Tongan government request for housing reconstruction.
>
> But Niua people think that is not good enough, he said, citing the
> comments of a priest who has just been to the ravaged Island.
>
> "Why wait? Our people are desperate and longing for help" says Fr
> Mateo Kivalu, just back to Wellington from Niuatoputapu.
>
> Archdiocese of Wellington priest Father Mateo Kivalu said 60 days
> after the wave struck his people are impatient to see action.
>
> The Tongan government and its partners has left him and isolated Niua
> people confused.
> Mr Maka said that with the help of Asia Pacific Economic News NZ
> Parliamentary Press gallery correspondent Anthony Haas, the web site
> was preparing a week of fresh reports from Niua and places influencing
> it.
>
> Here is a taste of what is to come onwww.tonganz.org– and about
> which fresh comment is being sought said Mr Haas, Fr Mateo and Mr
> Maka.
>
> Dilemmas and choices facing Niua Tongan tsunami victims
> Wellingtonian Fr Mateo told a Nov 1 2009 meeting on tsunami ravaged
> Niuatoputapu he saw contradiction between three voices of the Tongan
> government – and back in Wellington relatives are calling for
> "action".
>
> The Kingdom of Tonga and its friends face dilemmas.
> Fr Mateo, Catholic priest in the Archdiocese of Wellington covering
> Tongan communities at the top of the South Island and bottom of the
> North Island spent November in his home island of Niuatoputapu (Niua),
> and Tongatapu, to do what he could for his people. His uncle had died
> in the September 30 tsunami that killed nine Tongans in three villages
> of the northern Tongan island, near to Samoa, which had been hit even
> harder by the rogue waves.
>
> Temporary shelter after Niua's tsunami relief
> Fr Mateo Kivalu's Uncle Sililo wants to stay put in Hihifo. "I've
> never built a house" the priest who has spent five years ministering
> to Marlborough and Wellington Tongans says.  Nevertheless during his
> November visit to Niua to see what he could do to help; he set to with
> his family - and created a shelter of corrugated iron and wood
> salvaged from destroyed houses.
>
> The approximately 12 square metre shelter or little house known in
> Tongan as fakahekeheke, has a dirt floor and no windows - but does
> have a door for entrance and another for access to a kitchen.
> However, either a kitchen – or even an outside toilet have yet been
> built.  What discomfort and sickness will the inhabitants face?
>
> The permanent house dream for Niua residents
> What is happening to help Niua people achieve their permanent home
> dreams?
> Fr Mateo Kivalu calls for a non-government organisation (ngo) effort
> to get houses rebuilt for people in the three Niua villages of Hihifo,
> Falehau and Vaipoa.
> Now back in Wellington in the run up to Christmas the priest who went
> to Niua to see what he could do to help wants to get appropriate
> houses and community spaces designed.
>
> Niua's dilemma posed by Tongan land rights
> It is not easy for Wellington based Fr Mateo Kivalu to clearly
> anticipate what follows Tongan government indications land higher
> above the beach, inland, can be provided for displaced Niua residents.
> The Ma'atu land behind Hihifo, the village most seriously affected by
> the September 30 waves, is now distributed to absentee and other land
> users.  So what land can be available for which people directly and
> indirectly affected by the waves?
>
> Dilemmas for Haukinima as Tongan Government representative
> Peau Haukinima was the Niuatoputapu MP until the last election – and
> acted as Tongan government representative during Fr Mateo's November
> visit.
> Mr Haukinima's job is to be spokesman of the government.  Information
> is meant to come through him to the people Fr Mateo said after several
> weeks in Niua.
> Fr Mateo tells of local reports that Mr Haukinima said ten days after
> the waves struck that the Tongan government wanted Niuatoputapu people
> to re-establish houses up the hill.  Fr Mateo could not report, when
> he returned to Wellington at the end of November, what had been done
> to achieve this policy.
>
> Fr Mateo as shelter builder
> Wellington based Fr Mateo had never built before.
> But on his two week November visit to Niua to meet relatives, friends
> and strangers in need, he built a shelter less than eight –ten feet
> square in most seriously harmed Hihifo village.
> This house was for Simione Hami, brother of Salote, and a 14 year old
> niece.
> Walls were made of tin from destroyed roofs.  Framing timber was also
> salvaged from destroyed houses.  Fr Mateo was pleased he could help
> build something from nothing.
> The floor was soil and grass.  There were no windows.  There are two
> doors.  One goes into the house.  One is to the kitchen.  "But we
> never built the kitchen."  "For my uncle I built a similar shelter" he
> says.
> I want to build a decent home – more than a house – where there are
> three or four bedrooms, lounge, with bathroom and toilet outside the
> house.
> "I want to build that home on their existing piece of land, or
> wherever they want it to be built" Fr Mateo said as he prepared to
> follow up his mission to Niua.
>
> What happened?
> At approximately 1848 GMT on 30 September 2009, an 8.3 magnitude
> earthquake located at 15.3 South and 171 West at a depth of 33 kms
> between Tonga and Samoa, triggered the first tsunami ever to hit
> Tonga
>
> "The immediate response operation as Phase I of the entire relief
> arrangement operates as one team with one goal – to provide most
> effective and timely relief operation for the people of Niuatoputapu.
> The recovery and reconstruction phases would follow" the authors of
> the initial Tongan government report said.
>
> Find out more from:
> mel...@tapanz.com 027 563 5466
> ah...@decisionmaker.co.nz 027 242 2301
> fr_mateo.kiv...@paradise.net.nz 0274787189

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