Radio & TV Tonga, Nuku’alofa, 24/04/2018

Habitat for Humanity New Zealand is aiming to rebuild and repair up to 500 homes in Tongatapu after the devastation from Cyclone Gita in February.

This was after they launched the project in New Zealand last weekend in partnership with Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand and Caritas Tonga.

The Acting Director of Caritas Tonga – ‘Amelia Ma’afu says some homes will be rebuild while some will be repaired.

The launching was in two parts. The first part was the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding so as to commence the implementation of the support to self-recovery program which involves repairs for 300 affected families in Tongatapu. The second half of that launching was a very special part of the program where Habitat for Humanity NZ announced that they would launch an appeal to strengthen the existing capacities from 300 to 500 families. Within that 200, 50 of those will be complete rebuild and the remaining 500 will be major damages,” she said.

‘Amelia elaborated more on the work to be done in this project.

“So the purpose of this aid program is to implement the priority of Caritas Tonga under the Tropical Cyclone Gita response known as the support to self-recovery phase. This program is in coordination with the national shelter cluster and the strategies adopted in this self-recovery in terms of implementation have been adopted from the national shelter cluster. The idea is that we will provide the basic resources for 20 per cent of the affected population that have no other means of support – they don’t have access to remittances, they don’t have income or any other resources to commence the repairs to their houses, this is the initiative that is going to enable that part of the population to begin to recover to the normal after the cyclone,” she said.

Ma’afu says she hopes that this project will lead to a closer working relationship between Habitat for Humanity New Zealand and Tonga.

This project is estimated to be around 1million New Zealand dollars and it’s expected to begin on the first two weeks of May.

© Radio and Television Tonga News