Charity tradesmen rehousing victims

Thanks to Habitat for Humanity volunteers, the Leota family will soon have a replacement for the fale the tsunami swept away. Photo / Supplied

Peau Leota and 16 of his family members will now have a fale to call home, thanks to New Zealand's Habitat for Humanity.

The fisherman's beachfront house in the village of Saleaaumua was destroyed as he and his wife, who was 8 months pregnant, ran from the waves.

The couple and their six children have been living under a tarpaulin in the bush, but were told this week that a Kiwi charity is to build them a new fale.

It will sleep 16 people, the eldest Mr Leota's 90-year-old grandmother and the youngest his one-month-old son.

Habitat has finished building two fales and accompanying toilet blocks on the southeast coast of Samoa, and has another seven nearing completion.

Habitat volunteers started rebuilding at the end of October with a view to having about 370 homes completed by June.

Teams of plumbers, engineers, builders, architects, drainlayers and other tradesmen, all of whom pay their own airfares, spend about two weeks building before being replaced by the next group.

Members stay at a Christian church centre in Lepa, where their headquarters - or resource centre - is based.

Most of the infrastructure for the fales and toilet blocks is put together at the centre and then taken to the various sites, along the coast and inland, where family members help the volunteers construct the house.

The building sites are chosen by Caritas, the Catholic charity that has provided funding for about 40 fales.

Samoan cellphone company DigiCel will fund about 50 and the Samoan Government has committed to providing $18,000 a fale for at least 250 more.

As well as that funding, individual Habitat members have solicited the support of businesses in their home towns, including resource centre manager Enrico Hoover, an engineer in Morrinsville.

One business, Leask Toolshed, donated about $2000 of items.

The latest group arrived on Monday and will leave on December 22, when building will take a break over Christmas and New Year and resume on January 8.

The current team's oldest member is 71 and the youngest is 12, the son of Sydney man Colin Marland who met up with the New Zealanders in Samoa.

The pair brought 100 rugby balls from Australia to distribute to the children.